


Retrieving the Past

by Moonlessmondays



Series: Retrieving the Past verse [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, a lot of regalbeliever, also daddy Robin, and dimplesqueen, and outlawbeliever feels, dimplesbeliever, mommy!regina
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-04-24 06:27:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 64,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14349810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonlessmondays/pseuds/Moonlessmondays
Summary: It  has been eleven years since the dalliance that ripped Regina's world apart. But when fate brings her back two surprises, she begins to wonder. Has she moved on after all? Or are all of those just unfinished business she's been too busy burying? OQ AU





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> All disclaimers apply  
> Crossposting from fanfiction.net

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have ever wondered what it would feel like to read a fic where Henry is OQ's kid, then you're in a right place. Granted, there are better stories than mine to find, I urge you to still give it a shot. But if you're like meh, nop, then walk away. That's okay, too.

**_One_ **

Mondays usually bring in a gadarene feeling up in the air as everyone seems to be rushing on their way to work or to school—slowed and weighed down by the lazy weekend that's now passed, the need and desire for sleep and the reluctance to start the day, to start the week. The need to cuddle further under the covers or bury one's nose on the duvet is great, and everyone seems to be snoozing their alarms for five more minutes of shut eye.

Regina Mills starts her day with a modicum of disinclination as she lets her soft and warm comforters swallow her tired body up. She burrows herself further into the soft, warm covers, and presses her nose into the soft, white pillow. Her muscles protest with the need to stay in bed further, and she delays the inevitable as she rolls over and lays, spread eagle on her soft bed. She should get up, she knows, but staying in bed for a few more minutes seems like such a brilliant idea, and whatever she needs to do today seems to be too far from her mind now.

Her alarm beeps again, disturbingly loud in her otherwise empty and quiet house, and she stretches, tries to work out the kinks from her back. She really should go have it tended to, she thinks, but she rarely has the time, so she sits up from bed and rubs her eyes, trying to wake long enough to stand and get herself ready for the day.

It's barely six am, and the skies outside are still dark, grey, even going as far as gloomy and she really feels like it might even rain today—which is not at all surprising, this is Maine, after all. Just as she thinks of it, the skies cracks, makes the loud booming sound of thunder.

With a sigh, Regina climbs out of bed and walks to the bathroom. She takes a quick shower, mindful of the time and wraps herself in a robe. She picks her clothes meticulously and applies her makeup with careful precision. Once satisfied, she goes downstairs and makes something for breakfast (coffee and apple, double the caffeine) and then makes her way to the car, speeding off to the office for another day.

**…**

Regina's office is large and cozy, is able to hold her desk and file cabinets and still have room for a fireplace and a black leather couch which gives the space a homey feel to it. It has large French Windows, and she can see perfectly one of the apple trees she's asked her father to uproot from their house to plant to her own house and in her office. Her father had acquiesced to that, while her mother had called her sentimental (like wanting a piece of her childhood is a sin). And she supposes it is, was, sentimental of her to have that brought by and planted right where she can see it constantly, but it brings her serenity, takes away the stress of the day when she peers up at it and her mind flashes with memories of time long passed. And more than anything, Regina finds her office as a place for solace. Her house should be that, her huge, white mansion gifted to her by her father on her birthday which stands at 108 Miflin Street should be the place where she finds peace and comfort, but sadly it is not, and she finds that she'd rather spend her days in the office than in her own huge but empty house.

Luckily for her, she  _has_  to spend a lot of time in her office, as her growing company now needs more of her time and attention. She owns an Apple Plantation she calls the  _Forbidden Fruit_  which manufactures and distributes any apple product (the actual fruit not the gadget that everyone seems to be fond of these days, one that she herself owns) known to man. Apple pies, both fresh and frozen, apple jams, apple turnovers, caramelized apple, the apple fruit itself in all its kinds: McIntosh, Washington, Fuji, Green, Gala…all of it. She even opens the orchard and tourists from all over the country flock all over to go apple picking when it is season.

She is proud of herself, of her accomplishment, because not a lot of people can say that they have a corporation as large as hers at the age of thirty, and father is too, but Mother is a different story. She feels like Regina has wasted her Ivy League education (graduating with a 4.0 average in Vassar) just to  _plant_ apples. She doesn't understand that it isn't  _just_ planting apples, but making products out of it, making profits, lots and lots of profits, though profits is the least of Regina's concern.

As it is, she's expanding her market to other products, not just apple this time, but other food, other fruits too, if only her mother could see that she's not just wasting away her life like she thinks. Regina does this because it makes her feel good to be the Queen of her own little empire and because she is doing what she likes. It never does feel like she's working, never feels like a job.

Regina sighs and focuses on the document before her, wishing she could at least have some coffee. Maybe, she should have Belle get her a cup. Belle is Regina's quiet, reserved and long-suffering assistant for years now. Regina's hired her when she's started building her company and has been the first employees Regina ever had. She has always been patient, even through the more rocky years, rarely ever complains, and has always been efficient and punctual.

Belle makes sure that all the files are at the right order and Regina's schedule is never in chaos, is in charge of getting Regina's coffee when she can't to calm her down, and is also responsible for Regina not losing her head when documents pile up and Regina is right about ready to curse everyone in town. And though Regina often sees her with a book in hand, she has never once failed Regina, and so Regina doesn't make a big deal out of it.

As if hearing her silent prayer, her assistant walks in with coffee in hand and a smile on her face.

"You're an angel in disguise," Regina groans once her assistant places the coffee in her hands and she takes a long sip. She smiles, pleased when she realizes that Belle's gotten her coffee just right. Regina takes her coffee black, no sugar and no milk, and more importantly, none of those low fattening creamer that only adds more calories. She takes coffee for the caffeine, to wake herself up and keep herself alert, not for the taste. She feels her muscles rise from their previous cathartic state. She places the cup back on her desk, peering up at her brunette assistant (begrudgingly, sometimes, friend too). "Thank you, Belle."

Belle nods and then puts the document down on her desk that she hasn't even noticed at first. "You'll need to go over these," she says. "And Ms. Blanchard called asking if you were free for lunch. I put her on hold."

Regina takes one folder from the pile and scans it, frowns, "Tell her I'll meet her at Granny's at noon," she replies absentmindedly as she reads through the document. It's a contract for a local supermarket in Boston, and Regina wonders if it works out well for her favor.

Belle nods and then exits quietly, leaving Regina to pore over the new batch of documents she needs to go over. It keeps her busy for a long while.

**…**

Time rolls by in glimpse, and before Regina knows it, it's lunch time, her gurgling belly reminding her of it. She shakes her head and puts her work aside in favor of a very greasy burger from Granny's, quite possibly, the only decent diner in town. Taking her purse and shoving her phone inside, she walks out from the office, says goodbye to Belle with an urge for her to go out and eat something as well, before she makes her way to her car and drives to Granny's.

Mary Margaret is already there, sitting on a booth in the corner, when she arrives. She makes her way to her friend and plops down on the seat across her with a sigh.

"Long day, huh?" Mary Margaret asks, and Regina can only nod.

Long, long day and it is far from being over yet. She sighs and waits as the waitress, Ruby, comes over to their table and takes their orders. Regina goes for the bacon cheeseburger and fries, going with her initial craving and indulging for once. She doesn't usually eat junk but today, her stomach begs for something more than a measly salad. If it surprises Mary Margaret, she doesn't say, and instead she orders a BLT and fries for herself. Once finished, Ruby excuses herself and disappears into the back kitchen.

"How's your wedding plans coming along?" Regina asks the younger (by one year, Regina notes) brunette as she sips the water Ruby has brought for them upon her arrival.

Mary Margaret is the town's princess, daughter of the town's Mayor, homecoming queen, captain of the cheering squad and the queen of the annual Storybrooke Town fair back when they had been in high school. She is only a year younger than Regina and the two has always been able to form a close bond after Regina had saved her from a runaway horse, once when they were in middle school. And considering everything that has happened between their families, it is actually rather a surprise that they managed to remain friends.

"Stressful," Mary Margaret complains with a groan, just as Ruby comes over their table with the food they ordered. Mary Margaret offers her a soft thank you and a smile, while Regina only watches and nods. When she leaves, Mary Margaret continues, "David's mom is sick and is in intensive care for the time being, too, and we don't know if she can be out of the hospital in time for the wedding. And the location, the gazebo at the town square, who knows when that would finish. I've tried to talk to Leroy, but you know how he is. He told me, and I quote, "It will be finished when it is, sister", and that's the end of that discussion."

Regina fights the urge to laugh, knowing that Mary Margaret is actually very frazzled about her wedding, but she cannot deny that it is rather funny.

"Well I'm pretty sure you have enough hope in you that I won't even have to attempt making a hope speech for you," Regina says dryly, knowing that the fair brunette is nothing if not optimistic, and she has an abundant flow of hope and cheerfulness in her system that would put fairies to shame. "You probably get a quarter every time you even say the word hope."

Mary Margaret narrows her gaze and humphs, clearly not amused at her, but Regina only shrugs and shoves a piece of fry in her mouth. It isn't like it isn't true.

"So what about you?" her friend asks, then, "Anything new lately? Heard the good sheriff had been snoopin' round you huh?"

Regina glares at Mary Margaret and leans back. "You spend too much time gossiping, Mary Margaret," she says with a shake of her head. "Shouldn't you devote your time to making sure that the children of Storybrooke actually learn something other than how to make a birdhouse?"

Mary Margaret huffs then, digging into her lunch, and Regina knows that she's not totally pleased, but that shut her up about that topic, and that's all Regina cares about at the moment. She would not discuss this aspect of her life, no matter how good a friend Mary Margaret is. Furthermore, there is nothing to discuss, after all, Regina has closed her heart off on anything romantic eleven years ago, and she's not about to open it anytime soon.

**…**

By the time she finishes lunch with Mary Margaret, it's already moving past one in the afternoon. With a promise to meet her again soon and to help out whenever she can with the wedding preparations, Regina takes her purse and shrugs on her coat, ready to take her leave. Mary Margaret walks with her to the parking lot, which is not more ten steps from the diner itself, when they both hear the unmistakable and rather annoyingly loud sound of a horn blaring. Regina looks up just in time to see a boy, not more three or four, with a mop of bobbing curls, crossing the street unsupervised. He looks familiar, she thinks, but couldn't quite place where exactly she's seen the boy, not that it matters now as the car comes careening over with a disturbing speed.

It spurs her on, and she runs towards the middle of the street, mindless of the danger the oncoming car is posing, and swipes the child, wrapping her arms around his tiny body and carrying him away. From the distance, Mary Margaret yells out her name in alarm, but she makes it through, the child she carries now frightened and crying in her arms, before she hears the inevitable crash of the car on a lamp post.

The people inside the diner have come flocking out by then, and Regina heaves the boy up her arms and settles him on her hips. His darling little head falls on to her shoulders and she feels his tears wet the fabric of her navy blue pea coat. She runs her hands up and down his back, trying her hardest to calm him down, though that seems impossible as he continues to sob and hiccup in her arms. Mary Margaret stands beside her, placing a calming hand on her back, just as some other people swarm around the car that just crashed.

Regina busies herself with looking for the child's parent or parents, whichever, all the while trying to soothe him. Imagine her surprise when a man steps forward, frantic, and panting, his eyes filled to the brim with worry.

"Roland, my boy," he says, not meeting her eyes as his own eyes search frantically for the boy. He moves towards the crowd that has come and circled around Regina and Mary Margaret, and it isn't until Mary Margaret calls out his name that he even realizes that the boy in question is in Regina's arms. There he stands, just as rigid as Regina has been, his feet planting firmly to the ground as he comes into a grinding halt just before her.

Murmurs spread through the on-lookers, and Regina could just about kick herself because with a town as small as Storybrooke, news spread faster than a wildfire. It would only take twenty minutes, maybe even less, before the news reaches her mother, and god, what an earful Regina would get after then.

She tries to tether herself to the present however, and unconsciously she tightens her arms around the whimpering boy in her arms.

"Regina," the man murmurs now, forcing a hush to fall upon their spectators.

Regina wishes the ground would swallow her up in whole.

"Robin," she mutters, tasting on her lips the name she's sworn she'll never have to say again.

**…**

Of all the scenarios that crossed his mind when he heard the loud crash of the car and he'd turned around to find his boy missing, this isn't one of those. He's imagined, though not hoped, that his son had been ran over by that speeding car, his remains lying on the middle of the street, blood literally a puddle around him. He's imagined, and hoped, his boy actually making it to the street before the car could have crashed. But he had not imagined this: his son in the arms of a woman.

And of all the people he has expected to see,  _she_  isn't one of them.

He hasn't really thought he'll ever see her again, better yet, meet again, because it's been such a long time, and besides, she has gone all out in trying to pretend that he doesn't even exist, therefore lowering any chances that they might meet again. But he's seen her around town, of course, at parties, down the street, because in a town like Storybrooke, every one of its residents saw each other on an alarmingly daily basis. Everyone who is anyone on this town knew each other, which is neither here nor there in regards to their current predicament, really.

Though, he finds very quickly that even if his rational mind have all but settled it for him, his body, especially his limbs, would not cooperate. He stands, rooted on the ground, staring at the woman holding his son. Her hair is short now, nothing like the long one she used to wear, and her taste is much more impeccable, much classier in his opinion, while he…well, he's still the same jeans and a sweatshirt kind of guy. But to be fair, she has always been very classy, ever since they were young and…

Well it's not the time nor the place to go there, is it?

He attempts to take command over his faculties once more, urging one foot forward so that he might gather his son from Regina, and finds that he is, at last, successful in doing so. He moves towards them now in a slow and steady pace, trying hard not to fall flat on his arse and trying hard not to mind the people who have now convened around them like they were some kind of Greek Tragedy playing on stage.

He stops when he reaches her, only vaguely aware of Mary Margaret trying to disperse the crowd or the Sheriff now arriving and gauging the scene for himself. He extends his arms and tries to lift his boy from her grasp but his son protests, and Regina shakes her head, so he lets it go.

"I didn't see him go," Robin explains, without knowing exactly why. "I was buying him ice cream, and was trying to look for change in my pocket. He has a bad habit of running away, a little sneak…but I…God, I won't know what to do with myself had something happened to him."

He feels the tears prickle his eyes, and sees her eyes soften in return, but she makes no move to touch him, makes no move at all, not that he ever expects him too.

"He's asleep," she suddenly says in a soft whisper, her arms still rubbing up and down his son's back.

"Oh," he says, standing dumbly for a second, before he reaches for his son. Roland stirs, but doesn't wake, and at last he is transferred safely in Robin's arms. Before he can say anything else, Regina is walking away from him and the scene, the wet patch on her coat where his son had cried still visible, but she seems to pay it no mind. "Regina," he calls out for her then, spurred on by something even he isn't sure.

She turns around with a great deal of trepidation, and he understands, but he hates it all the same. "Yes?" she asks in a cold, detached voice, but he knows her well enough that it is a mask. It has worked well for her, that whole back-away-from-me-unless-you-want-me-to-run-you-over persona, but he knows her, knows her very well, in fact. It has never worked on him.

"Thank you," he murmurs sincerely, trying to smile, but realizing he can't. His heart pounds loudly against his chest, he's surprised she hasn't heard it, or that it hasn't knocked his child out of his arms.

She only gives him a nod then and turns around, leaving him to watch her walk away from him.

**…**

Regina likes to think that she knows her mother well enough to know that the reason she's called around three in the afternoon, demanding that her daughter came over and had dinner with her and father is to berate Regina for today's headline event, featuring yours truly. She also knows that it's the highest form of flattery to even dream of actually knowing Cora Mills, and Regina could be in quite a surprise the moment she steps into the house. Cora could be berating her for another reason, like her lack of husband, for example, amongst many other things, which she is sure would be coming up in later conversation as well.

And so it is with a sigh and an emotional armor that Regina makes her way to her parents' house, promptly arriving at six o'clock, just as mother instructed. If anything, she would at least get to visit with Daddy, and that always manages to brighten up her day, even when Cora insists on being surly and forcing everything on a bad note.

Regina thinks of the old days, as she knocks on the door and waits. She misses the Cora she's grown up with, the woman who had been caring and understanding, doting, even though she never was the one for public displays of affections. Her mother has always been a hard-ass but she's always been a good mother, providing and wanting only what is best for her children. Regina wonders if Zelena, her sister, ever hears from mother anymore these days, other than the usual nitpicking, since she's moved to Kansas.

It has only been in the past eleven years that Cora has become the woman she is now—stubborn (though Daddy will probably argue that she's always been stubborn), cold, and insensitive. Regina still blames herself for it.

The door opens, however, leaving her no room for her morose thoughts, and she is greeted by Mrs. Potts, a stout, old woman who has been their housekeeper ever since Regina was a baby. She's seen Regina grow, and has been privy to Regina's moments in life. Regina smiles widely at the older woman and pulls her into her arms.

"Hi, Mrs. Potts," she greets happily. "It's been a long time since I've seen you. How's Chip?" Chip is the older woman's youngest son, who has gone to the University of New York on a football scholarship.

"Oh he is well, Miss Regina," the older woman says with longing in her voice as she ushers Regina inside. "I miss him every day, but he calls me a lot, and tells me about his—well, everything."

Regina smiles at this. "I'm happy for him," she says, "And if I can do anything to help, you must tell me." The older woman nods, and Regina cranes her neck to peer at the nooks and crannies that can be seen overhead. "Where's Daddy?"

"In his study," Mrs. Potts supplies, before she excuses herself to the kitchen where she says Cora is.

Better steer clear of the kitchen then.

Regina makes her way to her father's study, then, and tries to look for her father. Her father, Henry Mills, owns the only bank in town (which is managed by her mother) and the largest flour-milling plant in the East Coast. He has inherited both from his father, and devotes his time in the plantation, leaving the bank management mostly to Cora. Just like his daughter, he enjoys it more than a hard day at work in the local bank.

Regina smiles at the sight of her father when she finally gets to his study and knocks against the jamb. His father looks up and his eyes light up.

"Regina!" he exclaims in happiness as he stands and makes his way to her. He engulfs her in a hug, one that she returns, and pulls her inside. "Your mother mentioned she invited you to dinner, but I hadn't thought you would actually come."

Lately, Regina has been finding reasons not to come over. She nods solemnly, taking a seat beside her father on his leather couch. "I can only stave mother for a certain period of time until she'd be forcefully dragging me to the house by the ear," she says, half serious, knowing her mother would.

Henry chuckles. "You know she won't do that," he says, patting her hand. He remains silent for a moment, enjoying a sip of his brandy, as Regina lays her head on his chest. "I heard about today," he says, breaking the silence.

Somehow, it doesn't even surprise Regina. "You mean Mother has told you?" she asks, already hearing in her head the words her mother had said and the words she will undoubtedly be saying later.

Henry nods his sheepishly. Well that is to be expected. "You saved his boy," he comments, and though his tone is light, the words that he utters are anything but.

"I didn't know the boy was his," she says, and it's the truth, she really didn't.

"You'd have saved him, regardless," her father says, and that is also the truth. "So you met him then?"

Regina bites her lip then and nods slowly. She doesn't really want to talk about it, not even to her father, because everything is just too raw. She isn't even entirely sure that she hadn't dreamed it (later she'll know that she hasn't). She is still somehow in a state of shock.

"Well, you couldn't have avoided him forever."

And those words are the truth. Eleven years certainly has been long enough.

**…**

Robin watches his son as he sleeps on his bed, the rise and fall of his chest comforting him in ways he cannot even begin to explain. It has been a close call today, and if it wasn't for Regina, he might have lost his son too. He is already without a wife, it would be rather depressing if he loses his son too.

But Regina…oh Regina, she is still as beautiful as he remembers her. While it's true that he's seen her these past few years, it has only been glimpses, just her walking down the street, passing by his office on her way to her Father's office. He's seen her driving down to the bank where her mother works (manages, he corrects himself, as though he hears Cora herself correct him), has seen her in birthdays and parties and events around town. But always just a glimpse, never face to face, and never as close as he had today.

If his son's life had not been on the line, he would have been grateful.

It seems time had agreed with her and she's aged so wonderfully and so beautifully. She is different now, from the sixteen-year-old version of herself, or the twenty, but she's still beautiful, and she's still as gracious as ever. Regal, he thinks.

He wonders where she is now, as he usually does when he gets a bit of time for himself, when his son settles down and allows him a few hours of quiet. He wonders what she's made of her life. He has heard about her owning her own business now, an apple plantation, David Nolan has told him, and it makes him proud of her in a way that he's not even allowed to. She has reached her dreams, she's made use of the orchard that their family owned but no one cared about and she's made a name for herself, with  _Forbidden Fruit_  now a household name in the country, still she lives in this small town, tied down to her roots, like she's always wanted. She has never been the one for the lavish and the excess, has always wanted the peace and the quiet, the simplicity of life.

And though he's made quite a name for himself, a bidder and a contractor, doing what he loves best which is building—anything, from houses to actual skyscrapers—he wonders if there is any realm that he can even match her, that he could deserve her. He hasn't really deserved her all those years ago, when they had been young and he had been an eager boy in the throes of his first love.

And maybe, even now, with everything that he's accomplished, maybe he's still not worthy of her, the woman he still loves.

**…**

Regina throws her keys on the side table as she toes off her shoes and leaves it near the door. It's been a long day, made even longer by her mother who has grilled her about Robin. There isn't much to grill, it was rather just a tiny incident, but Cora seems adamant to see her daughter as far away from him as possible.

"He's trouble, Regina, that Locksley boy," Cora spats at her over dinner, "He's always been."

Regina had bitten her tongue, trying not to snap at her mother. It wasn't her opinion of him all those years ago, she'd thought bitterly, but she hadn't voiced her opinion. She'd only gazed up at her father and gave him a look of resignation, one that he had dutifully returned.

Now, as Regina makes her way to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of apple cider, she can still feel her ears ring from her mother's words. It had been doomed from the very beginning, with her mother's welcoming speech of how Regina had disgraced the family with her little scene today, and how Regina will be the topic of gossip for the next few days for  _fraternizing_  with  _that_  Locksley boy once again.

Regina had tuned her out after that, but she is pretty sure that there had been mention of Regina being single when Mary Margaret, a year younger than her, will be marrying the next month. She doesn't really care.

As Regina takes a long sip of her drink, she hears the doorbell ring. She sighs, she isn't in the mood for company or unwanted visitors this time of the night. After the day she had, she deserves a break. With a frown, she walks to the door and pulls it open, ready to send away whoever is on the other side. To her surprise, a young boy of nine or maybe ten, stares back at her with big brown eyes.

"Are you Regina Mills?" he asks, all smiles and innocence.

She nods. "I'm sorry, who are you?" she asks the young boy.

He beams at her, heaving his backpack over his shoulder further. "I'm Henry," he says with a shrug. "I'm your son."

Regina stares back at him, feeling air leave her lungs, and she wonders if she's going to vomit or faint…maybe both.


	2. Chapter 2

**_Two_ **

Regina stands there in shock, unable to speak or move, or even breathe for a moment. She's not entirely sure what to do or say, the boy's words hitting her with full force and taking her by surprise. It is not possible. It just cannot be.

"You must have the wrong…" she trails off, not entirely sure where she's going with this or if there are any words to say. The words get stuck in her throat, and her voice fades away.

"You said you're Regina Mills," the boy insists, and Regina nods numbly even if he isn't really asking. "Then I don't have the wrong house."

Well, no of course not, because things like these…they happen all the time. Boys who insist that you're they're mother…they just show up on your doorstep every day. Events like this one…well, they grow on trees, waiting for her to walk under.

"I don't have a son," she tells him, voice cracking as she says the words.

"Don't you?" he asks back brazenly, his lips forming a stubborn pout. She'd have laughed at his precociousness if she isn't so confused and overwhelmed at the moment. So she shuts her mouth and doesn't argue further.

The boy stares up at her without words but his gaze pierces through her. His eyes capture her…they look awfully familiar, though she could have sworn she's never seen them before…and right at that moment she isn't entirely sure if she is seeing it, or if she's seeing just what she wants to see.

But what is it that she wants to see?

A draft passes, chilling her and making her shudder. It is only then that she realizes how late it is, and how cold, and she steps aside, opening the door further. She might not know exactly who this child is, but she isn't about to let him freeze to death.

"Look," she begins, swallowing with great effort. It seems like the lump in her throat has turned into a stone. "Why don't you come in, hmm? It's cold."

And they can talk about how he is her child, and how any of this is happening. Maybe that would help detangle the webs in her brain brought about this very special circumstance.

The child nods slowly, looks at her with unsure eyes, but something tells her it isn't because she's a stranger—she has a feeling that the boy doesn't really see it that way. It's probably because up to this moment, she hasn't accepted what he's telling her.

There is just no way.

She walks over to the living room, the boy hot on her heels, and points at the couch. She clears her throat, stopping just short of the coffee table.

"Sit there," she instructs with a trembling voice. She isn't quite sure why she's nervous—probably because her whole life is about to unravel right then and there. "Do you want anything—juice, water, milk?" She is at a loss, and really she hasn't been able to grasp any of this yet. "How about a cup of cocoa?"

The young boy nods eagerly, smiling at her widely, as his eyes light up in pure delight. "Yes, please," he asks politely, though the unreserved joy seeps through. "With whip cream and cinnamon," he adds as request, before she can make it pass the threshold.

His words has her halting, has her whipping her head back and staring at him in disbelief. This…this is just ridiculous, you just cannot make this stuff up.

"What did you just say?" she asks, disbelief coloring her voice, and it's not because of his stating his preference, but more of what that preference is.

He looks like he's taken it that way, however, because he shakes his head and frowns, eyes wide and apologetic. "It's okay, I don't need it though," he tells her, quick to make amends. "I'm fine with just water, or nothing at all."

She shakes her head. "No it's not that," she tells him, sighing. "What did you say you want with your cocoa?"

He bites his lip, obviously anxious now. She wants to placate him, but she doesn't know how (or that it should be her place to do so—in spite of his claims, she still needs proof). "Whip cream and cinnamon?" he says, in question, as though he wonders how she wasn't able to get that the first time, or if his request should at all be heeded.

Regina's heart stops in her chest and she feels it fall to her stomach. She knows only one person in her life who takes their cocoa that way…and really she doesn't want to venture down that road. So she holds her head up high and gives him a stiff nod.

"Coming right up," she says, turning away from him and making her way to the kitchen. In there she busies herself with making the cocoa, all the while muttering to herself how none of this is at all possible. Her mother had…her mother hadn't told her a damned thing. She's always been kept in the dark, and for so long, she's let herself be, thinking it was for the best. Only, now her past has come to haunt her and she's left wondering how much of what is true.

Still out of her head with the events of the evening, she walks back to the living room, two cups of cocoa in hand. The other one is spiked though, because as much she doesn't want to set a bad habit and drink brandy in front of the child, she also cannot stand not to have alcohol calming her nerves. She places the mug down on a coaster on the table and takes a seat on the couch, a good distance away from the boy who claims to be her son.

He smiles up at her—yet another thing so familiar about him, even if this is the first time in her life that she's laid eyes on him. "Thank you," he says politely, as he carefully lifts the mug from the table and to his lips, letting out a soft sound of contentment after he takes a sip.

"Where are you from?" she asks then, when the boy—Henry—finally sits and settles down on the other end of the couch. She raises an eyebrow, placing her mug down on the table.

"Boston," he answers. He then stares at his lap, and she wants to ask questions, loads and loads of them, but she doesn't really know where to begin, or what to say, or how to react other than with how she's doing now. Her heart thunders inside her chest. She hears him sigh. "I live in an orphanage in Boston," he admits, looking up at her, and then back down again.

"And how did you find me?" she asks what, perhaps, nags at her the most about all of these.

He bites his lip then, cheeks reddening, but he remains steadfastly staring at his lap. "One of the social worker in the orphanage, Miss Astrid, she kind of helped me," he says slowly, voice low, as though he doesn't want her to hear.

But she's heard it. "Kind of?" she asks suspiciously.

"Well…she didn't know she was helping me," he says, though without pride in it, and he's sunk so low on her couch now, it's practically drowning him. "I took her credit card and went on this site which found your biological mother for you, and then when I found out who…well,  _you_ , I took the bus and came here."

Well, Regina doesn't know there was such thing as that. And she hadn't even known that she's even on the records—she'd assumed mother would keep her name off of it.

"You do know that was not the right thing to do, right?" she asks him slowly, not wanting to reprimand her, as it is not her place, but wanting the point across anyway. It isn't good to steal, even if it does remind her of someone she knows, yet again.

"I know," he admits, ashamed. And then he looks up at her and she reads the anguish in his eyes, the pain in there, and she doesn't know what to say because the force of that knowledge knocks her back. "I just wanted to know you, to see you."

She swallows the lump in her throat once more, feeling her heart clench, and her whole being be flooded with emotions that she isn't entirely sure she should be feeling. What is she supposed to feel anyway? Should she believe him? Knowing her past clearly and still living the regrets poignantly up to this day, she is inclined to believe him. But…mother has said…come to think of it, mother hasn't been entirely clear on the subject.

"I should call child services," she says slowly, trying to get up from the couch to fetch her phone. It weighs heavily in her chest, the idea of calling child services and renouncing once more all holds she has of this child…if what he's saying is even true, but she needs to do it.

She is about to take a step when she feels a hand on her wrist, tugging softly, and she turns to look at the child who's now holding her and looking up at her with pleading eyes.

"Please don't send me back," he asks, begs more likely, and she isn't sure she has any choice on the matter. "Please don't send me back there yet, not yet, please."

His words tug at her heart, clenches it and holding it with a vise grip and she feels tears sting her eyes. But she isn't sure, she isn't sure any of these is true, and even if she is, there is no way she can keep him, not with the laws as they are. Legally, he isn't hers anymore (if he is, at all, to begin with), he is the State's, and she can't just keep him—she'd be charged with kidnapping.

"Look, sweetheart," she begins, sitting back down so they are face level with each other. She holds him by the shoulder and looks deeply into the eyes that so mirror hers, and she sees the tears there, sees the desperation and pleading not to be sent back. It takes all of her willpower to even say the words that leave her mouth next, "I can't do that. I can't keep you here, it's not the way the law works."

Tears slip from his eyes now, and she brushes it away with her thumbs. "I just wanted to get to know you," he tells her, voice broken with his tears.

God, it hurts, and she hasn't even fully accepted that he's her son yet.

"I'm sorry, Henry," she pleads softly, because she has no choice, her hands are tied.

"You don't believe me, do you?" he exclaims then, as he wriggles free from her hold, and she cannot answer because it's the truth—she doesn't believe him, doesn't  _want to_ , because if she did, does, it would just ruin the life as she knows it, and she cannot have that, not now, not with everything that has been going on.

It feels like everything from her past just came back to bite her on the same day.

He wrenches his bag open and fetches something inside, and Regina stops, watches him curiously, because he's gone from pleading to angry, to wanting to prove a point—one which he dangles in front of her face in the form of a paper.

"There," he says, all but shoving the paper to her.

She accepts it with the patience she doesn't feel, and scans it slowly, the words printed making her heart break and mend simultaneously, and she feels the world spin, her breath shorten.

"Do you believe me now?" he asks, and she doesn't need or want to ask how he understood the words in the paper. It's written clearly, plain as day—she is  _his_ mother.

**…**

She doesn't sleep much that night, haunted by the proof that Henry had given her, wondering if it's real, the doubts in her mind doesn't cease. Yes, she  _had_ been pregnant back then, an unwanted pregnancy her mother had tried her best to hide, but that baby had  _not_  survived…mother said that baby died at delivery.

But this boy, the boy who showed up in her house, the boy who claims to be her son, his name is  _Henry_ , the very same name she'd wanted to name her boy. It doesn't make sense anymore, nothing does.

And when she isn't plagued by the thoughts of her apparently not so dead baby, she is woken by dreams, of past memories she's tried to bury in her mind—of a boy, no more than twenty, tracing his fingers on her skin, mapping out her curves, kissing every inch of her naked body, and making love to her until the dawn breaks. She dreams of many nights of sneaking, of delightful sin, of kissing…of the times she had still been young, happy and in love.

Those times have long since passed, but they are rushing back to her now like water in the river, and she is helpless, cannot even shove the memory back into the back of her brain where she's kept them for so long.

She is restless all night, and when she fully wakes the next morning, she feels just as tired as she had been the day before, perhaps even more.

**…**

It is just so, that despite the proof that Henry had shown her, she cannot keep him. She might believe him, and she might and can claim him as her own, she may not keep him. That is just the law. And so with a heavy heart, and a desire to promise to the young boy that she will get to the bottom of everything (but she can't do that, can't instill in him false hopes that just might end up hurting him in the long run), she makes a call to the orphanage. She drives him back there, to avoid fuss and gossipy neighbors, early in the morning the following day of his appearance in her life. She takes him to her car with him still half asleep before the day breaks and the sun shines, and drives him back to Boston.

It has been singularly the longest drive of her life (not including that one time when she'd have to drive away from home when she'd been twenty), and her heart gets heavier and heavier at every distance they cover.

It doesn't make sense for her to find him, or him to find her rather, just to have to give him back again. Why now? Why ever? If it might be so selfish of her to say so, then so be it, but their lives had been better off. It isn't like she hasn't longed for this day, she had, back then when she'd still been full of hope and young, but it hasn't seem likely then, hasn't seem likely in any of the years that have already passed.

Yet here he is, the boy who claims to be his son, in her car as she drives him back to the orphanage she had not even known he'd been in. There are so many questions in her head, so many things she needs clarified, but why she cannot keep him becomes upfront.

She barely holds herself together when she pulls over the orphanage and bids him goodbye. She gives him a tight hug, the pain in her chest not abating as goodbye looms over them. She tries to convince herself that he isn't hers, he isn't her son, but her heart tells her otherwise, the affection she feels for the boy transcends that of her need to make herself believe.

He clings to her then, sobs against the crook of her neck and it takes the force of two social workers to wrench him away from his grasp (she holds him just as tightly as he had her). Regina turns her back from him and doesn't look back, she isn't sure she can say goodbye if she does.

As it is, she stays in the car and sobs her heart out, watching Henry be hauled off inside by the two women (as gently as they can for he is fighting, clearly wanting to break free). She tries to compose herself long enough, to drive away, and she manages, but she is sure she's left her heart with the boy.

**…**

Thus begins the longest month of Regina's life.

She isn't sure what to do with herself when she makes it back to Storybrooke and slams the front door of her mansion. There is a part of her, a missing part of her, that she's found and lost again. If what Henry is saying is true, then she's just lost her son for the second time.

But she tries to make things work, to restore order and forget everything that has happened lately. She tries to put her life back in its previous state.

She goes through the motion of her life, going to work and then back home again, but she avoids her parents at all costs. She isn't sure she could even face them after the deception. They have lied to her about her child, though she is almost sure that her father had been told the same as hers.

Her life has suddenly become lonelier upon finding out what she had.

**…**

He hadn't planned this, hadn't planned to come to her office, at this time of the day and bring her flowers, no. He'd been on his way back to his office just after lunch with his son and they had passed  _Game of Thorns_ , and he'd spotted the most beautiful bouquet of red roses that he's ever seen and he just had to buy it—they are her favorite, after all. And after she saved his son, it is only fair that he got her something nice in repayment. It has nothing at all to do with the niggling feeling in his heart that he wants to see her, of course not. His son's insistence that they should go and see R'gina hadn't helped him much in his valiant effort not to.

And so with his son in tow and the flowers in his hands, he showed up to her office, unannounced and asked if he and Roland could come and see her. Belle, the daughter of the flower shop he'd brought the flowers from and apparently, Regina's assistant, had called from the intercom before she'd let him and his son in.

Selfishly, half the reason he'd brought his son along is so that Regina won't throw them out.

But it all had worked in his favor, because his son had bounded into the room with his cute dimpled smile, carrying the bouquet that is almost as big as he is, and presented them to Regina Mills excitedly. She'd been surprised, but happy, and for that Robin is grateful.

"What are you doing here?" she asks, more to him he suspects, though she is crouching down and looking at his son.

"Wanted to give you flowers," Roland says in his baby talk and baby voice, smiling at Regina as though this is a common occurrence and not the first time in eleven years that the two adults have been in such close proximity and in private.

"To thank you," Robin now adds smoothly, making her look at him, though wearily and a little reluctantly. He watches her straighten up and brush her skirt. "I believe I owe you, for saving my son."

She looks surprised, eyes widening, as though she hadn't expected him to even thank her anymore. He cannot exactly blame her, it has been weeks since then, but he'd had cold feet. So many times, he had wanted to come up to her and thank her, talk to her, but every time he walks away, doesn't gather enough courage to even approach her.

He stares at her, now, watching her every move, her face, her eyes, even that little scar above her lip. He stares at her like a man starved and she's the meal, like a man dying of thirst in the desert and she's the oasis. It's been so long, so, so long. Eleven years, now.

Yet he's still here…waiting.

"It's really nothing," she insists with a flick of her wrist, and it makes him wonder how such a simple thing could appear so regal.

"Thank you, anyway," Robin says with a smile, hoping to charm her with his dimples as much as his son seems to have done, as much as he, himself, used to. He turns to his son. "What do you say, Roland?"

"Thank you, R'gina," his son says, smiling again and flashing those dimples.

Regina looks down at him and beams. "It is my pleasure, Sir Roland," she tells the boy with as much cheerfulness as she can, though Robin notices the quiver in her voice when she says his son's name.

He cannot blame her there, either.

"As a thank you, Roland and I would like to take you for ice cream," Rob in ventures, hoping she would say yes, but bracing herself to say no. There is no way in hell she'd come with them, he knows that. She has way too much to protect—her reputation for once.

He knows her, knows her very well.

She looks surprised and Roland looks at her pleadingly. She sucks in a deep breath, and tries to smile for the boy's sake.

"Oh, I—uh, I'm really busy at the moment. I'm afraid I'll take a rain check on that one," she tells him, and that is just what Robin has expected. "Maybe some other time?"

But Robin knows there is no other time, not really, not where  _he_  is concerned.

Roland pouts a little, but nods his head when Robin promises that they could get ice cream regardless. And with that they bid Regina goodbye and walk out of her office in silence after one last 'thank you'.

By the time they make it to the car, Roland looks fine and looks no longer bothered with not being able to get ice cream with Regina, as long as he gets ice cream by the end of the day. But Robin can't shake the feeling of disappointment that has taken root inside his chest.

**…**

It had shaken her to have seen Robin inside her office, coming over with flowers so nonchalantly as though it is something he did every day. And he had brought his son along, too—the son she had saved then, the very same son he had named Roland…she doesn't really know what to think of that, and for all she knows, someone would tell her mother, and Cora would come charging at her for this impromptu little visit.

But it is far from her reach, she hadn't had a say in it. Robin had just come strolling in, bringing her favorite flowers and there is that. There was once upon a time when she'd have welcomed that more graciously than she had today.

Robin's seemingly innocent visit had bothered her so much that she hadn't even noticed the time passing, until Belle had come in her office, ushering Mary Margaret in and bidding her goodbye for the day.

"You have a good night, too, Belle," Regina bids the younger woman, waving at her as Belle waves back and closes the door.

Mary Margaret casually strolls in her office, checking out every nook and cranny as Regina fetches her things and shoves them inside her purse. She had promised the younger woman that she'd go cake testing with her that day, because Mary Margaret's fiancé—David—had been tied up with work in the police headquarters. Regina had been too focused on her task that she'd forgotten to keep the roses from prying eyes until those very prying eyes have already seen them.

"What have we here?" Mary Margaret asks with a raised eyebrow and a smirk, lifting the roses in her hands carefully and smelling them. "Are these from Sheriff Humbert? I thought he wasn't pestering you." Her voice is half accusing, half teasing.

Regina winces and then shakes her head. How stupid could she be? Of course Mary Margaret would be nosey, she is born nosey. "He isn't," Regina clarifies, thinks that if Humbert is pestering anyone, it would be his deputy, new in town Emma Swan. "Those aren't from him."

It piques Mary Margaret's interests further and she drops the roses carefully where she found it and makes her way to Regina who is standing, braced against her desk, waiting impatiently for Mary Margaret to stop gossiping. There isn't a note on the bouquet, thank God for small favors.

"So who is it from then?" the younger brunette asks eagerly.

Regina rolls her eyes. "None of your business, Snow White," she bites, using the nickname she'd bestowed on the other woman when they had been kids and Mary Margaret had been so incessantly optimistic, like a Disney princess and it had grated on Regina's nerves.

It rolls off of Mary Margaret's back and she shrugs. "You know you want to tell someone," Mar Margaret points out, and she's not wrong there, Regina just isn't sure she could.

"Better anyone else than you," Regina says with a raised eyebrow in challenge. She waits to see if the other woman would react, but Mary Margaret only so far shrugs her shoulders. "You can't keep a secret," she adds, alluding to the time that Mary Margaret had caught her kissing someone and had tattletaled to Cora—she almost throttled Mary Margaret then.

"I was what, eleven when that had happened?" Mary Margaret defends herself, then she swears, "I can keep a secret now. After all, nobody knew about my engagement to David until the plans were underway."

"Not true," Regina points out. "You told me."

Which is true—Mary Margaret and David had been engaged long before they had admitted it to her father, or anyone else for that matter, and had only told Regina because Mary Margaret was about to blow her tops from excitement, that and Regina had caught on to it rather quickly after knowing the younger woman for so long.

"Just tell me who it is from," Mary Margaret demands, making Regina sigh heavily.

Their resident Disney princess won't have stopped bothering her if she wouldn't say, so she might as well.

"Well, if you must know, they came from Robin," she finally admits, her words coming out rushed as though she's embarrassed to be caught red handed with anything that came from Robin Locksley.

"Locksley?" Mary Margaret asks needlessly, eyes wide with surprise. "As in Robin Locksley?"

Regina bites down on her lip and nods her head mutely, grimacing when Mary Margaret gasps sharply.

"But why?" Mary Margaret asks with wonder, and Regina would have answered, if she hadn't continued on with another question: "Is  _he_  pesterin' you, then?"

God.

"No," Regina exclaims forcefully and quickly, almost too quickly. "He isn't. He came with his son, and they both gave me that, as thank you for saving Roland." The boy's name rolls off her tongue smoothly, but weighs heavily in her chest.

"Oh Regina, do you think—," her friend begins, but Regina cuts her off before she can even continue.

"No, M, don't start," Regina almost pleads, but she never begs anyone for anything, so it comes out mostly as a warning.

"But he's not with anyone, from what I've heard, his wife left him and his kid, served him with divorce papers and has now remarried—," she says, and Regina raises her hand to stop her, muttering  _'you have way too much free time, you gossip too much,'_  which doesn't deter the other woman because she just continues on, "And you used to be so good together…so perfect before you left for—"

Regina has had enough. "Stop it," Regina almost yells, the force of her voice carrying through the otherwise empty and silent room. She isn't going to stand here and dredge up the past and old friendships and relationships that she's buried so far into the ground. There is no use for it.

"Oh Regina," Mary Margaret whispers, taking her hand and squeezing it gently, "I'm so sorry."

Closing her eyes to reign in the tears that have prickled her eyes, and breathing in deeply, she shakes her head. When she opens them, she schools her features to something more indifferent and she shrugs, waving her hand in the air, as if to say it's nothing before walking out of the door.

It most definitely isn't nothing.

**…**

Robin has done many things in his life, had dabbled on many worldly things—women, cars, alcohol—but he has never tried drugs, not even once. And when he had been with his ex-wife, he had tried to get himself on the straight and the narrow, especially when Roland had come along, he'd been nothing but responsible then.

But if he had one drug, his very own brand of heroine, it would have been Regina.

Regina Mills.

He thinks of her, constantly. He thinks of her now, in fact, and he wonders about her, about how life has treated her. Well, he supposes, life has treated her well. She has her own business, he's heard that she'd been engaged at one point, but he's not sure if that's a rumor or a fact, he never did see the man who she's supposed to have been engaged to. She looks well, too, all grown up now and classy and beautiful…so, so beautiful, even more beautiful than she had been at age three, or six, of thirteen, or sixteen, or eighteen. She has always been something akin to Aphrodite's daughter, her beauty unmatched even by Aphrodite herself in his eyes, but now…now she is lethal. And he knows he's not the only one to notice.

He remembers her from awhile ago, how she's managed to hold herself together and how she'd held her head high when he all but crumbled at the sight of her and the sound of her voice. Nothing fazes her anymore, not that there had been many things that fazed her before…but now she's even more graceful, more regal. Her name befits her persona even more now.

He should forget about her really and run as far away from her as he could.

Somehow, however, no matter how hard he tries, he still finds it very hard to stay away from her. He hadn't been able to, back then, when they were young, living next to each other with only boxed hedges to separate their houses. He had been nothing but a three year old boy, moving into the town from the other side of the world. The Mills and the Locksley have become fast friends, their children often seen playing out in the yard together. They even went to the same school, until their senior year. They had so many plans, so many plans.

All destroyed.

And now she's as far as she could be from him, so far away he cannot even see her anymore, can't reach, can't touch, can't speak. He only knows of her, now, and she's like a phantom a life he once lived. Yet his heart, his stupid irrational heart continues to yearn for her, for the time.

"I wish I could get  _you_  out of my mind," he mutters into the night sky as he sits out in the balcony connected to his bedroom.

But it's been too long and he should have been able to successfully manage that already, what with all the women he'd been with since and his wife, and now his son, but he hasn't. So much have changed since eleven years had gone by, yet he sits here and pines for the moon, pines for the life that had been stolen from him and wonders if she feels that way too—cheated.

 _Why did you do it, Cora, Henry, mom, dad?_ He asks himself, asks the people he cannot dare to ask even if they are the only ones who holds the answers. He just needs closure, he muses. He just needs to leave it behind and move on. But alas, he cannot.

And he's still here waiting.

**…**

She thinks of him. She shouldn't, but she does. She thinks of him more often than she should.

Seeing him today had been a revelation, well, maybe that's too far a stretch, but it had been something. Seeing him today had definitely awoken feelings deep inside her that she'd thought she had long since forgotten, moved on from. She'd found it hard to move past those feelings as she helped Mary Margaret with the wedding preparations. She hadn't been able to shake those feelings off when she drove home, not even when she'd shuck her shoes off and got herself into comfortable clothes and lounged with a glass of apple cider.

She feels everything so keenly, so deeply.

She wonders if every emotion seems to be reawakened and magnified ten times its size because she's suddenly saddled with the past she's tried so hard to forget, with the two people she's tried even harder not to remember. Her son or at least, alleged son, and…Robin.

It has been so long since she's seen him face to face, and though she doesn't regret saving Robin's son, she realizes now that she's not truly prepared for the chain of reactions that had been set to motion by that one simple thing. She would do it again: save Roland, if opportunity presents itself, but she's not sure she'd have let Robin walk into her life, her thoughts, and sometimes her dreams if she had a chance or choice to avoid it.

She feels ridiculous now, though. Robin Locksley has been one of her oldest friends, before everything had come crashing down on them, he had been her best friend. He had been the boy next door who comes in the backdoor and steals cookies and brownies covered with pecan just right after Mama Odie (the old housekeeper in her childhood home, and now her  _own_ housekeeper—she'd poached the old woman, much to her mother's chagrin) had baked them, a whole hour before dinner. He had been the boy who helped hold her bike steady after she'd taken the trainer wheels off for the first time. The same boy she had gone to prom with.

But it is different now, isn't it?

They aren't three, or eight, or twelve, or seventeen. They are both in their thirties, separated by time and distanced by circumstances. It isn't easy just to come back to whatever it had been before all the disaster between their families, to be honest, it would be impossible.

She's not the same young, impressionable girl she used to be. She's a woman now, a woman who had both accepted and rejected an engagement, had lost love or love as she had once thought it was, more than once. She's different. Everything is different, and it can never be the same.

But she wonders why she's still there, sitting on her hammock in the backyard, wondering about a life stolen from her, a life she's never going to have—she keeps wondering.

She wonders about Robin Locksley, and the baby she bore for him.


	3. Chapter 3

**_Three_**

 

Robin is restless.

He is restless because he has a nagging urge to go and see Regina, which is something he should  _not_  be doing at any cost. It doesn't help that each and every time, in every place, he seems to be bumping into her. It almost feels like the fates are playing a twisted game with the two of them. Wherever in town he might be, eating at Grannies, wandering past Gepetto's toys, or the Storybrooke town hall, or the bank, or on the way to their respective offices, which are both on different ends of the town (their cars have passed each other on the road too many times in the past two weeks that is even real).

He cannot stand it, and it only aids in making him listless and wary.

Of course, that doesn't seem to be enough—that everywhere he goes, there is a trace of Regina Mills or Regina Mills herself—but his boy has taken a liking to the woman and has begged him dozens of times to go and see R'gina ( _because she's pretty, papa, and she's nice and saved me_ , says his little boy).

For eleven years, he has been able to avoid her, and now, now he cannot seem to be anywhere without her hanging over his head or standing in front of him, or in the same room, and by God, it's driving him insane.

He does think that he's gone insane, too, for having stooped to the very low by trying to reach her via phone call in her office more than just once. He wants to talk to her, doesn't know why and what about, exactly, but he needs to. Every time seems like a bad time, however, because it is her kind-hearted and patient assistant (bless her soul) who takes the call, informing him gently that  _Miss Mills is busy and is not taking any calls at the moment, can I leave a message for you?_

He doesn't leave a message, of course, he might be deluded but he's not the village idiot. He isn't about to leave some insane message and leave his name for reasons including, but not limited to: this town is small and who knows when rumors of him calling her would spread (it is a matter of  _when_  not an  _if_ ), that and that Regina won't bother returning it anyway, if he's stupid enough to do so.

He's going crazy (and how fitting because the whole town thinks so, already anyway—crazy Brit boy).

He tries not to focus on it, tries instead to work on the plans for another land they are about to develop and the infrastructure he and his men are about to build in it. It's a housing project in the next county, and for a period of time, that helps, when he really puts his mind to it, but at moments when he isn't focusing, and his mind wanders, it wanders right to Regina Mills.

Damned, infernal Regina Mills—consuming his whole life like she's always had.

He knows and he notices how hard she tries to ignore him, herself, and he has to admit, she seems to have more success in it than he does. Sometimes, he even is led to believe that she doesn't see him just right there, or that his presence doesn't bother her.

But he knows her, knows her better, and there is really very little that she can hide from him.

"You've got to calm your hype, man," his friend and employee, Will Scarlet, tells him when he's started pacing up and down the halls of their office one day.

Will had been just coming in to show him the floor plans their architect had recently finished so they can start building, and had come up short when Robin almost walked all over him.

"I am calm," Robin insists, though he keeps pacing, "So fucking calm."

Will shakes his head and takes his boss by the shoulder, steadying him so he'd stop walking all over and wearing ruts on their floor. "Then stop your bloody pacing," he says. "You're like a lion in a den."

Robin stops and shakes his head, tethering himself in the present and trying to rid himself of his thoughts, of Regina Mills (it's of no use, she's never been far from his mind, not for the past eleven years, and not now).

"I'm sorry," Robin says before opening the door to his office and leading Will in. He waits as Will lays down the blueprints and taps his fingers against his desk.

"At the risk of sounding like that damned Dr. Phil, what the bloody hell has got you like this, Robin?" Will asks, obviously exasperated with all his fidgeting.

Robin can't just come right out and say,  _oh nothing, just my past coming back to haunt me in the form of Regina Mills, nothing at all._

So instead, he says: "Just some stuff." He keeps it vague, with the hopes of throwing off the other man. He doesn't really want to get into it right now, or ever, for that matter.

Will raises an eyebrow at him sardonically, but says nothing more, and shows him the blue prints instead so they can start making plans and start building. Robin huffs, then, and tries to concentrate to the task at hand, leaving all thoughts about Regina Mills behind.

At least, until he can take them out again and overanalyze them.

**…**

Regina can't believe her luck. It seems that everywhere she goes, so does the man she wants least of all to see. Of course, that's just her life, because why else would she be running into him at every corner of this god forsaken town, if it's not just the fates playing a sick, twisted game with her?

It isn't enough that she has to live with the knowledge that somewhere (not somewhere, she knows exactly and by heart where she'd left him) in Boston there is a boy who is claiming to be her son, a son she's made with the very man she's trying to avoid but cannot seem to.

She'd laugh at the irony if it isn't so cruel.

He calls her almost nearly every day too, she's sure. He never leaves a message or his name, but Belle has informed him that there's a man with a British accent who keeps calling her—and it's not really that hard to figure out, Regina can count on her fingers the men who have British or English or Irish accent in this town, and there are even less who has any business with her.

So she knows it is him. What she doesn't know is why.

She wonders if just like her, the feelings and memories of a time past have come back and resurfaced within him too. And if that is the case, why should he ever act on it? It's been such a long time, it's been eleven years, for god sake, and really, he should leave things alone. There is no use in trying to retrieve the past or trying to recapture it, or doing anything with or about it at all.

It's in the past.

There is nothing left to do.

The biggest wonder of it all to her, however, is that her mother hadn't called her and lectured her about Robin. She is almost too sure that her mother won't pass up an opportunity to do so. Cora would love nothing more than to get on her daughter's case right away and speak her mind, no matter how unsolicited they might be.

It really is a wonder that her mother has kept mum about all of it. Somehow, Regina knows that her mother won't be for long, and when the moment Cora strikes, Regina is prepared with some words of her own.

**…**

He doesn't really know why he's there: sitting inside his SUV, parked right outside  _her_  house, watching, waiting, not really sure what he's doing there. He always passes by her street on his way home, but never once had he let himself pull over and wait, because then he'd always ask himself what good it would do.

What good does it do now? He asks himself as he drums his fingers on the steering wheel.

It isn't terribly late, it's only past six in the evening on a glorious Saturday, and he is sure that she's home, her sleek black Mercedes is parked right in front of his car. But he cannot bring himself to go up and there and ring her doorbell. He doesn't have enough courage for that. In fact, he should just drive away and let things be. Leave the things as they were, as they always have been for eleven years.

Had he not told himself merely two days ago that he should leave all memories of Regina Mills behind?

His heart thumps inside his chest, however, so loud and so fast, he fears it might burst out of his shirt. He is so bloody nervous, and he bloody well doesn't know what he wants.

He licks his dry lips and lets his forehead fall onto his knuckles with a grunt. What is he even doing here? Nothing. He doesn't know. And he should go.

It is what he tells himself anyway even as he shuts his engine and opens the car door. He climbs down, all the while asking himself what the hell he's even doing. But it seems that all the self control he's exercised all these years in trying to stay away from her have waned out, and once he's been within her proximity, it's almost as good as impossible to stay away.

It is almost as impossible as trying to stop loving her—which he realizes he should do.

He walks across the cobbled steps, fidgeting with his thumbs and running in his heads the words he would say when she appears at her door. But the words escape him when she finally does, and she stands there in her white long-sleeved blouse and grey pantsuit, her hair tucked neatly in a low ponytail. She seems to wear no makeup, aside from her lips coated with something glossy, that it entices him and makes him want to kiss it right off—which isn't the best thoughts to have at such a time.

Her eyes are wide with surprise, and her mouth falls apart a little as she takes him in. He'd be surprised too, if she's in his place. What are the chances that a past lover, once upon a long time ago, would ring your bell after eleven years of not talking to each other?

Sure, that happens all the bloody fucking time.

"Robin," she whispers in a gasp, and her hand tightens on the brass knob of her spotless white door. Come to think of it, everything in this house is white. Looks clean, looks pristine, looks nothing like the house they've spent many nights dreaming…

But at least life has been good to her.

"Regina," he says with a tilt of his head. He shoves his hands in his pockets and waits…waits for her to invite him in, for something, for anything.

"What are you doing here?" is all that he gets from her however.

"I…I'm not really sure," he says slowly. Might as well be honest, he thinks. "I was heading home, but my, uh, I suppose you could say my heart took me here."

"Robin," she breathes out after a while of just staring at him, trying to let his words sink in. He really needs to control his mouth. He is about to apologize when she pipes up with another question, "Where's your son?"

"With his Uncle Will, probably having unhealthy amounts of sugar," he responds with a sheepish smile. He shakes his head. If she isn't going to invite him in, he's going to have to ask then. "May I come in?"

Her eyes widen once more, and he can see the hesitation in them. Of course, she won't want that. Her mother won't approve, and Cora Mills have eyes everywhere. People would talk—what business would they have with one another? And god, past hurt and buried feelings would come to resurface, and how is that healthy?

But she steps aside and opens the door wider, "Come in," she offers.

He takes not a moment to think but steps inside with haste, moving past the door and looking around the big white mansion in Mifflin Street owned by one Regina Mills. It is beautiful, tasteful and elegant, everything that its owner is. It screams of wealth and class, everything that Regina herself oozes.

"Would you like a drink?" she offers with a shaky voice as she closes the door and walks past him, the clicking of her heels echoing in the huge mansion.

Robin swallows thickly. "No I'm fine," he says, shaking his head. He looks her in the eyes and steadies on. "I want answers."

Her eyes flash with something he cannot name, and she swallows noticeably, before breathing in deeply and nodding her head. She should be asking him why now, but she doesn't.

She probably knows that it's long overdue, too.

"I suspected as much," she tells him, and for the first time in a long time, he thinks they might be on the same page. She leads him to the den and then pauses. "Make yourself comfortable. I'm going to get myself a drink."

He nods but instead of sitting on the couch, he follows her to the kitchen. He knows he ought to give her a moment, a few minutes to herself, but he can't be parted from her, not now. He's had enough of being apart from her for eleven years, and now, now that he has the chance, he's not about to let her out of his sight.

"It's been a long time since I've been to a Mills house," he comments lightly, surveying the house—the paintings on the wall, the décor, the rug, the structure, everything.

"It's not the same as their house," she tells him, though he knows that. "Nothing is ever the same."

The words are ominous and nothing else but true, and it makes his heart crack painfully, for how he had always longed for things to be. He watches her pour herself a glass of whisky and then look up at him in silent question, to which he only nods.

"I am reminded of the fact at very frequent intervals," he tells her when she hands him the glass. She doesn't say anything, only walks away, beckoning him to follow and leading him right out to the backyard. He notices the apple tree sitting in its lonesome in the middle of the yard, and it makes him smile. He knows that tree.

"I see you brought a little piece of home with you," he comments, gesturing towards the apple tree.

She nods at him mutely though there's a little smile on her lips. She's still as beautiful as ever. "I begged father to bring it over here and one for my office, too," she tells him. "Mother would have cut it down, anyway, since she'd had her garden redone."

Robin watches her intently. He feels as though he hasn't seen her in years when in fact he has, maybe not in such close proximity but he has always seen her…yet, his heart thunders in his chest with no steady rhythm, and he could feel every nerve endings hum. He cannot take his eyes away from her.

"You're still so beautiful," he murmurs, not even realizing that the words are out of his mouth until they are and she's gasping, staring at him with wide eyes, surprised, though she really shouldn't be. Did she think that he hadn't spent most of the eleven years watching her, thinking about her, foolishly besotted with her? The words spill from his lips more before he could stop them. "Regina, if you only knew how long I have waited for this…how I have dreamed of this very moment…that you'd stand there and finally talk to me, answer my queries after such a long time. Eleven years….Regina, eleven years, it had been such a long time."

She deflects his gaze and looks away. "Robin, no," she almost pleads, and he hears the note of desperation in her voice. "I don't need that right now."

He doesn't say anything to that, words seem so unnecessary anyway. Instead, he lifts his glass to his lips and takes a generous sip, trying to gather his courage about him like a cape, the need for answers now seeping through him. But he doesn't take his eyes off of her, can't really even if he tried.

"So," he begins with trepidation and uncertainty. "Where do we even begin?"

She breathes out audibly, and her shoulders tense. She looks about ready run the hell away from her own house. "I don't know," she admits, raising her hand in surrender. Maybe that's a good idea—to just surrender. "I'd rather we don't at all."

It's the truth, he can see it. He rephrases his question. "Alright, where does it end?" he asks, though he doesn't really want to ask that. They both know what it means: where do  _we_  end?

"Robin," she says and her voice is soft, placating, as if cushioning the blow he's sure to come. "You know it's ended a long time ago."

 _We ended a long time ago_ , is what she means. And he is right, there's the blow, and her tone hadn't softened it at all.

He doesn't know what to say to that, feels like he can't speak anyway, because his heart has somehow manage to crack and break even more, just when he's thought that it can't anymore. So he continues to look at her in silence, and she continues to look into the distance sharing it.

After a long while, at last, he finds his voice. "Where did you go?" he asks the question that has plagued him for eleven years, the question that had he just known the answer to all those years ago would have different results from what they have now.

"Phoenix," she answers after a sip of her drink. She doesn't look at him, and he cannot expect her to, but he stares at her as if she might disappear at any moment. "They sent me away to a private home until it was time and then they sent me straight to Vassar. I was just lucky that it was at the end of senior year that I got…well, and so moving away wasn't without ties. I had to hold off enrolling for a semester, though."

"No wonder I couldn't find you," he says, not just a little bit chagrined. He is furious, after all these years he still manages to feel furious. "They made sure I damned well won't. They hid you at the last place I'd even try to look for you."

She doesn't say anything to that, instead she tilts her head and rolls her wrist slowly to stir her drink. "They hadn't told everyone here the truth though," she says. "After you've been shipped to wherever you were brought to—they told everyone I was just touring around the country before freshman year starts, a graduation gift of sorts. No questions, nothing. Everyone knew we could afford it, anyhow."

"They sent me to Stanford, where they always wanted me to be," he tells her, though she hadn't asked. "On my third year—,"

"You dropped out of school and came back here, I know," she supplies, and it surprises him because it seems that he's not the only one who kept tabs. "And then you ran wildly around town and the next for a few years before you got your act together, built your own business, met someone, married, had a kid."

He looks at her in a new light now. All these years, he hadn't thought she cared. All these years and he'd watched her from afar, thinking the last thing she even thinks of is him—she definitely looked the part, and now he realizes he's wrong.

"You kept tabs?" he asks, surprise coloring his voice.

"Hard not to," she answers with nonchalance. "Your life had been headline for a good long while around here." She smiles with no mirth or pleasantry. "There are no secrets in a town as small like this." She huffs. "Beside everyone knew us, everyone knew Robin and Regina, and they thought I'd know so they'd ask. I'd had to grit my teeth every time anyone would ask what was happening to you."

That makes him chuckle wryly, self deprecatingly. So he hadn't been the poster boy for a guy-next-door. But he had made something out of himself, and that is something that he is proud of.

"Did you...well, you…in Phoenix then?" he asks, taking them back on track with his very broken thoughts and even more broken words.

"Yes," she says with a deep sigh.

"And?" he prods gently. He wants to ask, wants so badly to ask about the child he's always wanted but never had the chance to love…the child he conceived with the love of his life, the child they'd both dreamt of, so unfairly and unjustly ripped away from them.

"A boy," she tells him with wonder. He feels tears prickle his eyes at the wonder, at the waste, at the time lost. She continues, "But mother said he died at childbirth…he was…he was a few weeks early. I blacked out for a few hours after he was out. When I woke up, Mother said he didn't survive. She was the only one there with me at the time."

"The boy had died?" he asks, aghast. He often wondered what had happened to their child, but he'd never known and he didn't know who to ask. The ones who hold the answers, he never wanted to go near to.

"That's what mother said," she says, almost stoically. Finally she turns to him and her eyes are bright with unshed tears. Her mouth quivers. "They told me you would be told. Your parents were told."

"Well, they didn't tell me," he informs her with anger and frustration, with regret and guilt. If he had just been able to find her, if they had just been able to make it out of this damned town…but those are nothing but what ifs now, and they only serve to hurt more.

"I'm sorry, Robin," she says, plaintively, though none of it is her fault. "I was told…I didn't know."

"You never called, never wrote," he tells her with hurt in his voice, because the pain in his chest seem to spill everywhere. He'd waited, when he'd been in his dorm room, pining for the life he should have made with the woman he'd loved, he still loves. He'd waited when he'd been at home, even if that had been the last place he'd wanted to be. He'd waited for her to write, let him know where she was.

No letter had ever come.

"You never did, too," she throws back. But by then they both know…none of them knew where the other was at the time. "I didn't know where you were, Robin."

Of course that had been the truth.

"I wanted to write too, Regina, but I didn't know either," he lets her know, offering a sincere apology. It had been such a waste.

There is a silence that falls them, and it's heavy with tension and Robin isn't entirely sure how to go on with this conversation without wanting to die or rip his heart out—as it is, her stoicism and apparent detachment from him and her feelings seem to be her own way of ripping his heart out.

"He was our kid," he tells her, the memories of the past flooding back to him…of dreams, of whispered words of love, of plans for the future they had been so sure was theirs to take…together.

She doesn't respond to that because there is nothing to say. It is the truth…it was their child, and they never really had a say. It hadn't been for them to decide, and the choice had not really been theirs to make. After their parents had found out about Regina's pregnancy, they had simply taken over. Their parents had taken it upon them to make that choice for them, thinking it was the best. And now…well, now the boy is dead.

Now, the seams have been ripped too far apart for Robin to even say that they shouldn't have meddled, that it wasn't their decision to make, that they cannot possibly have known better…that only he and Regina does, did. It's too late now, far too late.

"How was it in Phoenix?" he asks then, unable to stand the silence where their guilt and the pain overwhelm them and drown them.

"Like hell," is her response and he asks himself once more why he even instigated this. The pain is too much, too intense, and god he doesn't know how much more of it he can take. "It was lonely. I was just about to turn nineteen, and it felt like my whole life was about to turned around completely. The only solace I had was that I had our baby inside me. Most days, that had not even been enough." She looks down and shakes her head, bites down her lip as though trying not to let the words slip, but they do anyway. "I missed you, everyday. I…I, all I wanted was to be back here, or anywhere, as long as I with you."

There is longing in her voice that he cannot help but notice. He can't say he hadn't wished the same thing. He can't say that at the time he had not blamed her, too, apart from their parents, because she should have fought harder with him against them. He'd blamed himself too, thinking that if he could have tried harder… But he'd realized later on that it hadn't been her fault, neither had it been his, they had been overridden by their parents who had more power, more wealth than they ever wished they had at nineteen.

"I named him Henry," she informs him, and there is something in the way that she says it that gets to him, something about it that tells him there might be more to it than just letting him know what she had named their boy.

His heart skips a beat. He feels unsure about how to digest that information, but the joy that makes his heart thump is equal to the pain that pinches it just the same at the thought that they won't have that anymore.

"Like we have always told each other we would our first born," he says the words that linger in both their minds, undoubtedly, for it is the truth. Once upon a time, they had planned for it, when they had been young and fresh out of high school and she'd been in his arms, telling him she's with his child…way back before that when they'd been so in love and planning for a future, of a marriage and having kids together.

Her lips pinch together and she doesn't say anything in return. She only holds her head up and puts her walls up higher.

"Why did you name him Henry?" he asks, though it is a stupid question, one that he had answered himself.

She looks back at him for a brief second and then away again. "Does it even matter?" she asks, and he only throws her a look. "I…because I was barely nineteen and I was still in love with you, and I thought…with my young and naïve mind that maybe…at least he'd have a little piece of us and we'd have a little piece of him even if it's just his name."

His heart cracks, breaks and then falls into smithereens inside him.

"Oh, Regina," he gasps out.

"Don't." She holds up a hand and drops it as her eyes fall shut."It doesn't matter now, though," she says now, turning her back from him. He could see how high her walls seem to have grown. "You have another son, you're not alone…you don't even have to…it doesn't matter anymore."

"Except Henry was my son too," he all but growls at her. Does she not see how much pain he is in, how much it truly matters? "And I love my other son with my whole being, but Henry…he was my son too, and I could have loved him just as much if I was ever given the chance."

They both could have.

 _And I'm still in love with you, and can't just not care about it,_  he wants to tell her, wants to shake her for her to understand that…but he doesn't.

"Your son…Roland…" she whispers the name reverently and he knows why. "You named him Roland. Why?"

He had never thought he'd have to justify his name choices to anyone, he certainly didn't have to with Marian, yet here he is now. She knows the reason though, she  _must_  know.

"Because I was twenty-six years old and still in love with you," he answers bluntly, making her look at him, head whipping sharply, and eyes widening. It is the name they'd told each other they would name their other son, if they were lucky to have another, back then….way, way back then.

It has taken her by surprise, obviously.

"Did she…did she know?" she asks, voice trembling. Her eyes are wide and it's almost as if she couldn't believe it. He realizes that it's such a stupid thing to hear, to still be pining for a woman after all those years, but he can't beat his heart over it, could hardly blame himself for it.

"About the name? About you?" he asks, and she shrugs. Everything, probably. "She knows I had a kid once, but that I have no idea what happened to it. She thinks it's nothing but a stupid first love anyway. She found out otherwise though, soon enough, and it turned just a touch bitter. She doesn't know it's with you, though. And she sure as hell has no idea about the name, didn't know we named our child because it was the name I planned when I had another child with my first love. She seemed smitten enough about me naming the child."

"She left you," she says just as bluntly, and where it should hurt it doesn't.

He nods. "Yes, she did. Well not exactly, but in the grander scheme of things, when you look at it, you can say that she did. It was wrong, us being together. And I guess she was tired of being in a marriage where she…I don't know. We married for all the wrong reasons. We both wanted to get out of things that haunted us. She wanted out of that cage she called home, abusive father and all that. I wanted to get out of…loving you, I suppose. I wanted to get  _you_  out of my system. And she…" he pauses, and she looks at him questioningly. Might as well just say it, then. "She reminded me of you, so much. Hair, eyes, will, sometimes with the way you talk. You actually have the same humor, and for so long I guess I made myself believe that it was enough. I made myself believe that if she was just enough like you then I could be happy. Well, I realize now how fucked up that was."

"Didn't you love her?" she asks, surprised by his revelations. Or maybe disgusted, he isn't sure yet. "You were together for a while."

He knows he sounds blithe, but it really is just what it is. These are the facts.

"I did," he admits. "I loved her, despite the similarities between you two, she was her own person and I loved her. I just didn't love her enough. I wasn't in love with her…and I suppose that wasn't enough for her, and now I realize it was never enough for me too. And so she chased her own dreams and left me. She still sees our son from time to time, but her job requires much travelling that Roland won't be as settled as he would be here in Storybrooke, so we decided he should stay with me." He swallows. "In the end it was for the best. We both couldn't keep trying to stay knowing that it didn't feel right, that it never had." He looks her in the eye, then. "She just wasn't you."

Regina remains quiet, and he sighed. It was late. He was exhausted. Who knew talking about the past tired someone out this much?

"Listen, I—I have put you out so much today, I should go," he tells her when he sees she's grown uncomfortable again. "I ought to go home." He needs to digest everything he's learned tonight.

She bites her lip and nods. "Out in your place by the forest?" she asks him.

He looks at her intensely, heart hammering in his chest. "Yes, by the forest, near the lake," he tells her, and he doesn't need to read her mind to know what is in it. He knows what she's thinking, knows she's connected the significance a long time ago. He shakes his head, tries to smile for her sake though it comes more as a pained grimace. "Thank you for tonight, Regina."

"Thank you, too," she says as she leads him out the door. It's become increasingly darker now since he'd come in.

"May I see you again?" he asks, gathering up as much courage as he can muster.

She shakes her head though, and disappointment makes his heart fall to the pit in his stomach. "It's better if we don't," she tells him, and when he asks why, she answers with, "Because it hurt too much to talk about all of it tonight, Robin. I don't think I can do it again."

With that she closes the door on him, and he's left on her front porch, heart breaking and tears leaking.

**…**

When she is sure that Robin has left and she's heard his car drive away, only then can Regina let herself cry. She lets herself cry for all the things that they've talked about, for all the pain they felt and still feel, for all the regrets.

She'd loved him for so long she doesn't even remember when she didn't, or when she'd stopped, or if she ever had, but she told herself it was time to move on from it. Now though, she isn't sure if she ever had moved on from it or she'd just spent so much time burying her head in the sand, or burying those feelings to the ground.

Years and years of feelings, hidden and buried, all come unraveling to her and it's all in tangles and she hates herself for feeling like this. She's tried so hard for the past eleven ears to forget.

She remembers his eyes, blue and bright, happy and sad when she'd told him that they had a boy…Henry. She cannot even imagine how he would react if she told him right then that their boy might not have died after all…that maybe Cora had lied and their boy had been tucked away in Boston all these years…that he had come to her doorsteps and claimed that he's her son…that as much as she's tried she cannot take him off of her mind and she had been thinking of doing something so reckless for a few weeks now….She cannot tell him anything, doesn't even know what to tell him if she could.

She feels helpless, not really knowing what on earth she is ought to do. The first man she's ever loved, and the child they have made that she was told was dead, they both came back to her life at the same time. How would she know what to do?

But she does know one thing, and it's that if she wants to get her life back together and move on from the pain, she's going to need answers, just like Robin had when he came here. Besides, after her talk with Robin, it seems it had just sprung more questions. . She needs closure.

And if it is proven that Henry is hers, then there are questions and answers to be had, people to be informed—her parents, for instance. Not to mention, the boy's father. But she'll deal with that at a later date. Right now, she has to go and get herself some answers; starting with her mother.


	4. Chapter 4

**_Four_ **

He loves his son.

Truly, he really does.

There is no one he loves more (perhaps maybe, Regina but that's a different kind of love entirely, and maybe Henry, but he loves his sons equally, even if he's never had the chance to see the other one). And he's pretty sure that he's willing to do and give anything that his son asks of him.

But sometimes, Roland's requests can get a bit wild, and Robin is at a lost at how on earth he can even accomplish giving it to him.

Like when he asks if they could go to Regina's office again or invite her out for that ice cream…well, he's not entirely sure how he could give that to him. He might as well just ask for the moon. It isn't like Robin doesn't want to, god knows he wants to—the more time he spends with Regina, the better, even if it seems to just wreck his already broken heart even more. But Regina doesn't want to spend time with him, he knows that. She's basically asked for that when he'd gone to visit her a few weeks ago. Granted, she'd said that she'd rather not rehash the pain, and not explicitly that she doesn't  _ever_  want to see him…he does know his boundaries. He does know that she's hurting, that she'd been hurt by that confrontation too (even if she doesn't love him anymore, it is bound to hurt—after all, Henry was her son, too, and she'd been the one to carry him for nine months).

And he really  _shouldn't_ , shouldn't try and invite her over at their house, just to lounge by the lake not take a dip since it's freezing out there, of course, but just to hang out, just like his son has asked. He's tried not to, as well, had tried to hold back the intense desire to see her again, to be around her presence and just spend time with her—but he's just a man, a weak man, still in love with the most stunning woman he'd ever known. And if he gives in and gives her a call one day, while he'd been in his office, chewing on his pen, thinking things over until his head hurt and his mind's eyes are filled with images of Regina, well, then he can always make himself believe that he's doing it for his son.

**…**

Regina cannot really say that she's not surprised when Belle tells her via intercom that she has a call, and it's from Robin Locksley. She'd thought her message had been clear the last time they'd talk, and that's she really cannot talk to him anymore—the pain is just too intense whenever she's faced the future she'd never have, of the things and people she'd lost that she can never get back now. And she'd really rather not have to face it.

"Thanks, Belle," she says though, when Belle calls her name once again, snapping her out of her reverie. She takes a deep breath and shuts her eye for a second before she picks up the phone and places it against her ear. She sends a silent thanks to the beings above that her assistant is Belle, who is discreet and likes to keep things to herself, rather than the likes of Mary Margaret who literally can't keep any secret. She breathes again. "Hello."

There is a pause and she wonders if Robin had put the phone down, but she hears his breathing and knows that he's still there. It's almost uncomfortable and it takes a while, but then he finally speaks.

"Hello, Regina," he says, his voice deep, his dulcet tones caressing her whole being in a way that she can't explain, and she wants to be able to tell him to stop calling her, to just stop bothering her at all, but she finds that she can't, finds that despite the number of times she tells herself that she doesn't, she  _does_ miss him, with every fibre of her being, with her whole soul. "I'm sorry to bother you."

She is tempted to say that no, he's not sorry at all, and if he is, he won't have called, but he did, and now they're stuck in this awfully awkward phone call. She sucks in the venom that's at the tip of her tongue and sighs.

"Well, you've already called, might as well just tell me," she says, and so much for choking back that bitterness in her tone. She can't help it though. She does have a lot of other things too, rather than talk to the embodiment of regret.

There is a sharp sigh coming from his end, probably him being surprised at her coldness, but what did he really expect from her?

"I'm sorry, I'm just wondering if, if, you, if there," he stutters, and Regina rolls her eyes. He hasn't changed, still acts the same when he's nervous.

"Spit it out, Locksley," she says impatiently, "I haven't got all day." She doesn't want to be rude, not at all, doesn't even want to talk to him, if at all, but her emotions are too close to the surface and putting up a cold front is the only way to hide the pain.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs and it sends a pang in her heart, one that she ignores. It's neither the time nor the place to be psychoanalyzing her feelings, and if it's all up to her, there will never be. "It's just that Roland wants to see you. He's asking to see you again, this weekend, hopefully."

 _Roland or you?_  Her mind asks, but her mouth doesn't. Instead she bites down her lip and breathes deeply. It doesn't really do them well to keep doing this to each other, to keep on staring at their past regrets and heartaches in the face, but she's not strong enough to resist him, to resist the little boy with dimpled cheeks and curly mop of brown hair.

"And I would have told him no, told him that he can't see you that you're busy but it's the third time he's asked since he'd met you, and his mother has cancelled on him again because her assignment just got…she doesn't mean to do that but her time isn't hers, and I'm just so tired of disappointing Roland and…" he rambles and rambles and for a moment, Regina closes her eyes, and just listens, because it's been such a long time since she's heard him talk this long, a long time since a voice soothed her like this.

She can't allow him to do so, though, can't allow him to be a bigger part of her life than he already is.

"I can't," she whispers, interrupting his long winded explanation of why he's asking her to spend time with him and his son. Regina's heart clenches at having to say no, she really doesn't want to, but there isn't anything she could do. She can't deal with the pain of spending a whole day with Robin and his son, and then wallow in regret and self pity because she could have had that—him and whole bunch of kids—but she doesn't.

Besides, her mother would find out—and that's something she just doesn't want to have to deal with on top of everything (as it is, she already has a bone to pick with her mother).

His easy acquiescence and soft  _alright_  shoots daggers right through her heart though, and she wishes she's strong enough, wishes she said yes.

But she had not, and then he's bidding her goodbye, telling her that she's got an open invitation, if she changes her mind, and then hangs up.

And she's left staring at her phone for minutes after the call.

**..**

The rest of the day passes by quickly and it's rather been uneventful. Her mind had been too loud for her to focus on work, and by the time the clock struck five, she's almost grateful to be going home. She bids her assistant goodbye, and hurries on to her car, driving away to her home. Or house. It's never really felt like home to her.

She's only mildly surprised when she finds her housekeeper, Mama Odie, still in her house, baking a batch of pecan brownies she used to love when she'd been younger. She still loves it, but she's now more weary of her calorie intake that most of the time those sinfully delectable brownies go to waste—much to Mama Odie's consternation.

The thought that Robin might still love the brownies as much as he had when they'd been kids flits through her mind. But she's quick to dismiss it. She has, quite frankly, had enough of thinking of Robin already. The past is the past and she needs to try harder to put it right where it belongs.

She sighs as she braces herself against the wall and removes the four-inch heels she's been strutting around in the whole day. Granted, it isn't entirely the most logical shoes to wear in an apple orchard and plantation, especially if she's out making rounds of inspections like she'd had today (it had been a pathetic attempt to get Robin out of her mind—a stroll around her orchard, a bit of fresh air—and it had not worked at all), but she'd been accustomed to wearing it. She only curses herself once she gets home and removes the shoes and tells herself she won't be wearing those damnation of a pair of shoes—only to do it again the next day. She bends down, right after, to pick them up and then trudge to the kitchen, following the smell of the brownies baking.

It's been a long day and she's feeling it as her muscles protest and her stomach grumbles. Her mouth waters at the pure heavenly scent, and maybe, just this once she can let herself choke down some brownies and not feel guilty. After all, mother won't even see.

"Yo 'ere," Mama Odie greets her without even looking back at her, and she wonders sometimes, like today, if the older woman has some sort of odd sixth sense where she's concerned. "Have sum of dem brownies." And then she turns, a plate with a slice of brownie in hand. She offers it to Regina and smiles when Regina takes it from her. "Make sho' it dun't ruin yo appetite."

For someone who's lived in Storybrooke half her life, Mama Odie's New Orlean's accent is still heavy and clear, and Regina's learned a long time ago to find solace in it. Since Mama Odie has been her nanny, plus makeshift cook at her childhood home before she'd poached her from her mother, Mama Odie knows a lot about Regina and had watched her grow up. Regina, in turn, has come to look at her as some sort of second mother (sometimes, more of a mother Cora's ever been to her).

"It probably will," Regina says as she places her shoes next to her on the floor and digs in on the chocolate-y goodness. "But it's fine."

"You gun' eat some of those leafy thin's you like to call food, ye?" Mama Odie teases, white teeth coming out as she grins at Regina. "They ain't givin' you any nutrition. You're all skin and bones, lady!"

Regina shakes her head (nutrition does not always equal fat, she'd usually say, but these brownies are just much too good for her to bother arguing) and takes another bite, groaning at the orgasm of tastes that is happening inside her mouth. She closes her eyes and they roll at the back of her head at the amazing taste. She doesn't quite remember now why and how she'd managed to stay away from these.

"What's troublin' you, poppet?" Mama Odie asks as she turns back around and starts on making Regina some coffee.

Regina knows how much the older woman knows her, knows that there isn't much that she can hide from her. The first person who had figured out without being told that she'd been pregnant back then had been Mama Odie, and it had been the older woman who had helped her find the courage to tell Robin, and then their families—that had been set to a blazing fire, of course, the whole ordeal had been ugly and regretful, but Regina is still grateful to Mama Odie. She had, after all, been the kind of mother that Regina had needed at the time, the kind of mother Cora had failed to be.

"Nothing," Regina says, shuffling and walking over to place the now empty plate on the sink. Mama Odie throws her a look, one that she ignores. "It's nothing," she repeats. "I'm just tired. It's been a long day, and it will be a long week."

"I don't doubt it at all," Mama Odie says, in her thick and heavy accent, as she shakes her head. "But that ain't what's troublin' you," she pauses and then huffs, "Now don't you go lyin' to Mama Odie, becuz, I'd know, lady, you know I'd know."

Regina's hands curl into fists as she turns her back from the older woman. She needs to cry, needs a really good cry she's been holding herself back from these past few days—hell these past few years, but she can't. She feels defeated and vulnerable, feels weak and she never ever wants to feel that way. Her shoulders shake and tears fall down from her eyes without her permission, and then she feels two arms encircling her, pulling her to a warm embrace.

"Now, now, what's got them tears rollin' down your cheeks, hm?" Mama Odie asks, and try as she might, Regina can no longer hold back.

"It's Robin!" she sobs, tears falling down her eyes continuously, as she hiccups and sighs. A wet patch forms on the bosom of the older woman's shirt, but she doesn't seem to mind as she rubs a hand up and down Regina's back.

"There, there," she says, hushing Regina, "Did he pull your pigtail? Or steal your cookie? Did he say you have cooties?"

Regina, bewildered, pulls back and stares at the older woman in question. "What?" she asks.

"Well, I haven't heard you cry and say 'It's Robin' in light yeas!" the older woman says with a chuckled. "Figur'd, he'd been pulling yo hair again like yo both back in kindergart'n."

Regina shakes her head and scoffs, pulling away and crossing her arms against her chest. She pouts at the joke.

"Well, if you aren't going to be serious about it!" she complains, oddly feeling like a child when she does it. Maybe Mama Odie is right (she's certainly been making a point), but Regina is just too adamant to admit that.

"Now, don't be pullin' dem face on me, young lady," Mama Odie warns, shaking her head. Her eyes alight with mirth, and the corners of her lips are pulling upwards. It seems, too, that no matter how old Regina gets, she'll always be young lady. The thought makes her huff. "You know bettah than to act like a damn child, so what's it about young master Locksley."

Of course, Mama Odie won't ever stop calling Robin that, despite them outgrowing it and being in the twenty-first century. Regina supposes that some things are just hard to let go of (like her love for Robin—but she's not ready to psychoanalyze that yet).

"He's…" Regina tries to say, but she's at a loss for words for how it truly is. How is it really? What is Robin doing and what is she doing about it? Is there anything to do? Or is she just taking it out all on Robin, placing all the frustration she feels on him this time, because she's finding everything hard to digest and accept?

"He what?" the older woman asks.

"He's so him!" she gesticulates, arms and hands flapping around, as she searches for the right term but coming up with naught. "He's so Robin!"

"As oppose to being Will Scarlett, who ain't him?" the older woman asks again, looking more calm than flabbergasted.

Well, if she's got all of this together and sorted out, can she please spell it out for Regina?

"That's not…" Regina begins but stops when she finds that she's not sure entirely what she means. She's not sure what it means to her that he's so him—does she love it? Does she hate it? Does she pretend to hate it because deep down inside she loves it and it only makes her love him more?

Probably the latter.

"What's goin' on?" Mama Odie asks as Regina sniffles and tries to get herself back together. The older woman's hand is soothing against her back and she tries to get the words out.

"He's been coming around again," Regina confesses. "And I'm not sure what he wants from me."

"Supposin' he wants his friend back, don't you reckon?" Mama Odie shakes her head. "I ain't seen nothin' wrong with that."

But that's the thing, isn't it? They never were just friends, not even when they'd been younger—innocent and unaware, they'd always been more—almost as though they were made for each other, as though they were soul mates.

And maybe, after all these years, that's what's wrong.

Regina shakes her head. "I don't know what he wants," she confesses because it's the truth—she doesn't know, only knows that after eleven years, he's come back, and now she doesn't know what to do. "But I don't think I want to know."

Mama Odie raises a sardonic eyebrow (or maybe it isn't at all, she's just seeing things, she's never too sure with the older woman), and huffs. "You still scared of what yo momma might say?" she asks, voice dripping with so much emotions, but none that Regina could really decipher.

She tries to think of the words to say, to turn it around, and maybe make it look like that her mother's words don't affect her anymore. In some degree, she's learned to let Mother's words roll off her back like water, but then, there is still that sixteen and nineteen year old Regina that resides in her who's actively seeking her mother's approval—wondering if she will ever get it.

"It's not just her," Regina says, as she tries very hard to ignore the disapproving shake of the older woman's head. "What would other people think? It's been years since Locksley and Mills have ever been in the same room together…It will start talk. I'm not ready for that."

Mama Odie regards her with a long look silently, and Regina fidgets from where she stands, feeling heavily scrutinized. She bites down on her lip before looking at the older woman with question dancing in her eyes. The older woman then pats her shoulders and nods.

"You know," she begins with a smile (though Regina cannot read much into it, can't tell if it's sincere or mocking), "All them folks used to say how you look so much like yo momma, and how yo're so much like her—bold, ambitious, cunning, independent, cold sometimes, calculating, don't need no one but your will, audacious, you know everythin' yo momma was—but I usually can tell the difference…but I'm startin' to think they're right. Yo're turnin' so much like yo mother."

Regina doesn't know if that's a good thing, but judging by the way Mama Odie talks, it really isn't. There had been a time in her life when Regina had wanted to be just like Mother thinking it might finally please Cora, but then…when Regina had thought about it (back when Mother had enforced isolation on her when she'd been pregnant with Robin's baby) she decided that she didn't want to be her…didn't want to be Cora. She'd wanted to be herself, to be free of her mother's clutches and be free to make her own choices. Now that she's in her thirties, living a life of her own, without a husband or a child, or anyone to be there for her—is she really turning to be her mother?

"Yo best be eatin' some real supper, young lady," Mama Odie warns and she unties her apron and lifts it over her head. She walks to the pantry and hangs it there, before grabbing her bag and walking back again. She moves past Regina and taps her shoulder, before squeezing once, twice, and smiling. "Remember, yo greens are good fo you, but them greens ain't no dinner. Eat well."

Regina nods numbly as Mama Odie's words still ring clearly and loudly inside her head.

**…**

Robin has resigned himself to the fact that Regina isn't coming. He's explained it to his son, saying that Regina wants to be able to be there, but she can't, she's busy with grown up things. The look of disappointment in his son's face had been more than enough to break his heart, but there isn't anything he can do. He doesn't have any hold over Regina's, and though ashamed, he had used his son to get through her—to no avail.

They will just have to do without her presence. He's done it for eleven years, what's another lifetime, right?

"Daddy, can we go have ice cream?" his little boy asks, tugging on the hem of his jacket, waking him from his reverie. Roland is looking up at him with puppy dog eyes and a pout, one that everyone knows he cannot resist, no matter how hard he tries.

He ruffles the boy's curls and smiles, nodding. "Of course, my boy," he says. It is rather too cold for ice cream at this time of the year, but there is no point dissuading his son, so he doesn't even try. If he cannot convince Regina to spend time with them, then he's not going to let his son down with this.

Small thing, he knows, but big leaps in terms of his child's happiness.

"But we best have lunch first, lest it ruins your appetite, hmm?" he says, and the boy nods enthusiastically—happy, knowing that he's going to get his own way. "I'm going to make us some sandwich, what would you like?"

"Turkey!" he yells happily, before he's running away from his father and into his playroom, making Robin shake his head at his antics as he makes his way to the kitchen to work on lunch.

He stops on his tracks however, when the doorbell rings, and he wonders who it could be. It could be anyone, really, since his friends do have a habit of just dropping by whenever, and he welcomes them, welcomes that, knowing that time spent with them would be time where his thoughts don't bother him.

He makes his way to the front door instead, and opens it. His hand grips the handle harder when he sees who is standing in front of him.

"Regina?" he asks, voice full of wonder, as his eyes devour her form, standing right there in front of him, looking nervous and unsure, but with that beautiful smile on her face.

"Hi, Robin," she murmurs, looking up at him with anxious eyes.

**…**

She shouldn't be here, no, not really. She's even tried to talk herself out of this ludicrous idea, yet her she is, standing outside his door, paper bags filled with food in hand as she rings the doorbell and bites down on her lip out of habit. She's not entirely sure how this would go, but she'd listened to her gut, listened to what Mama Odie had not really said out loud, but said all the same.

She'll be damned if she becomes her mother—so whatever this might be: an act of defiance, or her listening to her subconscious, she'll take it. She has in fact taken in.

So here she is: standing in front of Robin's front door, waiting for him to open it. If only he would do it quicker so she doesn't feel more and more of an idiot as the moments pass by.

When he finally does open the door, and almost chokes on her name, she cannot possibly do any better than: "Hi, Robin," as she looks up at him with anxiety that has now grown more than she is as tall.

He looks comical standing there in front of him, staring at her as though she might disappear within seconds. She clears her throat and shifts her weight, looking away briefly. She's not sure how to make this less awkward, and once again she asks herself what the hell she's doing here. It's for Roland, she tells herself, but there is a part of her that wonders if it really is  _just_  for the little boy…

But no, stop right there, she orders to herself, because those are not the thoughts she's supposed to be having, not right now.

"I hope the offer still stands," she finally says after a few more beats, just because she can no longer stand the awkward silence. That and she's freezing on her ass as she stands there on his front porch, waiting for her to invite her in, or send her away—whichever.

It seems to snap Robin out of his thoughts though, as he suddenly stands straighter and moves to the side, opening the door further. He takes the paper bags from her and lets her in. "Oh, of course," he tells her. He closes the door behind them as she takes in the interior of the house. Her heart stutters. "Thanks for coming, Roland would appreciate it." His words are a string of incoherent noise as they ring in her ear. She could feel her heart dropping down to her stomach and inching up her throat at the same time, and she's not sure how that even is possible. "As do I," he adds when she doesn't make a sound.

She turns to him, and opens her mouth, ready to…she's not sure what she's ready for—is she ready to lash out? To cry? She feels like doing both, to be honest.

"What are these?" Robin asks, lifting the bags he's holding in his arms, snapping her out of her thoughts.

She files those very thoughts at the back of her head and looks up at him. "Um, I brought lunch," she tells him, making him nod and smile in thanks, "It's just about time for it, so I thought I'd bring some." She bites down her lip once more. "And um, ice cream, since I told Roland that I'd take a rain check on the previous offer."

"Thank you," he says, tilting his head to the direction of the kitchen, urging her without words to follow, which she does.

It's only a few steps from the living room, but the kitchen adjoining the dining area is spacious. There's an counter island in the middle, lined with high stools. The counter tops are all made from marble, but there is a running theme —earthy tones which she finds calming and befitting the aesthetic of the space.

It almost looks familiar.

"Roland," Robin hollers suddenly as he unpacks the food she's brought (her very own homemade lasagna, garlic bread and some salad).

The dimpled little boy appears from the corner a smile gracing his cute little face (it seems like he's never without one, and it goes to show what kind of father Robin is if he can raise a happy little boy like Roland –it makes her wonder about… _no, that is enough of those thoughts)_.

"R'gina!" he exclaims with gait when he spots her standing rather awkwardly in front of the island counter, watching the boy's father as he maneuvers around his kitchen to serve their lunch. The little boy comes barreling towards her then and crashes against her , arms wrapping around her legs. She almost topples over, if she hadn't been able to brace herself against the counter.

"Roland, careful," Robin chimes sternly enough to make sure that he's serious, but not harshly.

Regina wants to burst into tears—this definitely has been a bad idea, she should not have listened to her stupid gut. She hadn't signed up for this kind of assault to her feelings.

"Sorry daddy," the boy says sheepishly as he lets go of Regina's leg. "Sorry R'gina."

Regina swallows and then nods, "It's okay," she tells the boy as she reaches down to ruffle his curly mop of brown hair. She finally unravels enough to pull off her coat. She puts at one of the stools, making a mental note to ask Robin and move it to the coat rack later. She addresses the little boy. "Your daddy says you wanted to spend some time with me."

The boy nods enthusiastically as she helps him up his booster seat. She tries to ignore Robin's eyes on them, but she's hyper aware of him and the way he's looking at her.

"I did," he says, watching his father dish up some lasagna for him and slide it in front of him. "Because you're so nice and pretty! And you saved me!"

Regina feels her cheeks warming at the compliment, and she looks up at Robin who smirks at her and shrugs as he hands her a plate of food. She settles on the seat beside Roland and continues to stare at him.

"Out of the mouth of the babes," he tells her, and she rolls her eyes at him, but it's good natured, and Regina can almost make herself believe that if she just doesn't think about it hard enough, she can pretend that this is all normal.

It's all normal for her to be inside her ex's house, eating the lunch she'd prepared for them (though she'd say that she didn't exactly prepare it for  _them_ , not painstakingly, and especially not as particularly as she had), and listening to his son prattle on about his toys and his dreams—conveniently forgetting as well, that the said son is named after the one they'd planned for years ago, while the other one they actually did have might still be alive, sitting in an orphanage in Boston, and her said ex knows nothing about any of that.

Yep, right, it's all so perfectly normal.

**…**

Roland is down for a nap in the afternoon. He'd spent much of his day talking Regina's ears off and begging her to play, read, and do almost everything with him. It's not as though there is much begging to be done because Regina seems to always be game for anything.

She really does have a soft spot for children. And she really has a touch of a mother.

He shouldn't, but he cannot help but think of the wasted opportunity. She could have been a mother to his kids, is actually the mother of his kid…but, at that time their parents really just  _had_  to know better. What did two  _kids_  who were in love with each other have against two sets of parents who said they knew better? They really had not stood a chance.

It's all in the past, though, he tells himself. And though he wants to, he can no longer replace or retrieve that.

"Maybe I should go home," Regina says as she steps into the living room, having just tucked Roland into bed at the child's insistence. Where it might offend Robin that his child would choose a virtual stranger over him, he finds his heart swelling with love for the two most important people in his life (whether or not he or Regina is willing to accept that simple fact).

He frowns at her then, not really wanting to let her leave, knowing he cannot really make her stay if she doesn't want to. The time she spends with him is non-existent, and he wants to cherish every moment that it becomes a possibility.

Whatever his neighbors think is not of a consequence to him—because he knows there will be talks, he's not a doubt about it.

"I'd prefer if you stay," he says, immediately regretting it when Regina's eyes widen in panic or disbelief—he can't really tell. He amends his statement quickly with, "At least until dinner. I'd like to at least be able to take you to dinner as thanks for today, with Roland of course." He adds that last statement quickly, lest he scare her off further.

He watches her swallow visibly, and it makes him want to suck on her neck, right just where it meets her collar bones, then he hates himself for thinking it because she's off limits. Very, very off limits.

"It's not necessary," she tells him as she shifts on her feet. She is looking at anywhere but him and he wonders why.

"I know," he says, then shakes his head, "But I'd like to be able to, all the same."

She's silent for a while as she seems to weigh in her options or decisions, he's not sure anymore. He thinks that he used to be able to read her well before, but eleven years is no small deal when it comes to a person, and though he knows a part of her—some parts of her that peeks through from time to time—there is so much about her now that he doesn't know, parts of her he wants so badly to know.

She inhales and exhales slowly before she turns to him. He can read something in her face, a question perhaps, a lingering doubt, but she nods, and it makes relief flood in his veins.

"Alright," she says then she smiles—small, doubtful, unsure little thing, but it's a smile nevertheless.

And it's the first one he's earned since they'd been back in each other's life—and one he's going to treasure all his life, like all the other smiles she'd given him.

**…**

Regina looks at the view outside the window as they drove by the streets of Storybrooke. The sun had set and they'd left the house just in time for dinner. Roland had woken a few hours after he went down for a nap, highly energized and full of life. He'd asked both his father and his new friend to play with him, until Robin had said that it was time to leave for dinner.

The three of them had piled out of Robin's house and into his car. Roland is currently sitting on his car seat contentedly playing with his toy airplane, leaving the two adults to their own world, which, at the moment, is full of awkwardness.

Instead of trying to thread through it and make small talk, Regina had turned to the outside view and had just watched every landmark they'd passed by. She'd held so many fond memories in every corner of this town (with it being so small), and most of them had been with Robin. Robin had been her best friend before and during their relationship, and now that she's given herself the chance to reminisce, she finds that not much of her life pe-baby had been separated from his.

When they begin approaching the forest, Regina also begins to wonder, but she doesn't voice out any of that, opting instead to just trust Robin. If nothing else, she can trust that he won't try to kill her.

They stop just right before a small, odd looking establishment called  _Little's_ and though Regina has much doubt about the place, she still opens the car door and steps out into the cold night air. She moves to the passenger door and opens it, without second thought, unbuckling Roland and helping him out of his car seat before she can think twice about it.

If Robin minds, he doesn't say so.

They all walk to the diner, if she can call it that—it really just seems like a dilapidated shack—with Roland's hand clasp warmly in each of their hands. She tries not to psychoanalyze her situation and just walks inside.

The boy is obviously excited, jumping up and down in between them as they walked inside. The inside is, to her relief, a little bit better than outside. It looks clean enough, if not as posh as where her mother would eat (come to think of it, she doesn't think Cora would ever step into a place like this), and it's only half filled with people—men and women alike, who look startled by her presence.

She feels out of place in her designer everything—black coat, satin blouse, skinny jeans and designer black knee high boots, but she swallows down that feeling and lets Robin lead the way. He seems to know the way well enough, seems to know the people here well enough as he greets and smiles at the people around them. Suddenly a burly man who looks like he's been left at the buffet one too many times, comes out from what Regina assumes to be the kitchen. There is a beaming smile on his bearded face, and he looks very pleased to see Robin there.

Funny, because she doesn't quite remember him, even if she wants to say that he looks familiar.

"Robin!" he exclaims, waddling over to them and clapping Robin on the shoulder. He then looks at Roland and gives the boy a high-five before lifting him into a bear hug that makes him giggle. He turns his attention to Regina then and smiles. "Ah, Robin, you sly old dog, still having all the luck with the ladies! Is this yer lady?"

Regina wishes the ground would open up and swallow her whole, as it seems as though everyone just stopped what they are doing and moved to stare at the four of them. She can feel heat rising up her cheeks as she looks down at the floor, where the dirt suddenly seemed so interesting.

"No," Robin says in a nervous chuckle. "She's just a friend." She doesn't know why that feels like a fucking knife to the heart but she chooses to ignore it. "Well, actually, she's more like Roland's friend," he looks at his son who giggles and nods happily. "This is Regina Mills, I'm sure you've heard of her, one way or the other."

The man's eyes widen and he offers his hand to Regina, which she takes hesitantly. She offers a smile, though she feels as though everyone is still staring and silently judging. She's starting to dread the morning more and more.

"I'll be damned," he says. "You're  _the_  Regina Mills?"

She's not sure how to respond to that, so she nods, choosing to carefully ignore the way Robin nudges the other man.

"I am Regina Mills," she confirms. Then her lips screw up as she tries to come up with a name that her brain simply doesn't supply. "I'm afraid I don't know who you are."

The man chuckles heartily and shakes his head. "Name's John Little, I own the place." There is pride in his voice that Regina cannot help but admire. It might not be much, but it's still his, and he's proud of that.

"It's a pleasure to meet you," she says softly, nodding. The man returns the sentiment before he urges him to take a seat, telling them the food will be out in a few moments.

The food, it turns out, is simply delectable, and though Regina can't really be one hundred percent sure that it's clean, it's still delicious. Fattening most of them, but delicious, and she can't help but dig in, especially since Roland and Robin seem to enjoy their own meal.

A few people had come by to greet Robin and ruffle Roland's hair (in fact Regina wonders how Roland can stand it, but he seems to be just as happy to see these people as they are to see him), and a few of them had even said hi to her—perks of being in a small town.

A few times, Regina had caught herself correcting Roland in his manners—he talks with his mouth full, points at people, among a few other things—and though she does it subconsciously, she's not sure if she's overstepping bounds, and it doesn't help that she cannot read Robin.

By the time they finish their meal, Roland is full of new table etiquette and her stomach is just as full from the delectable food. John had come by their table to ask if they enjoyed their meal, and to make small chit chat before they leave.

"I'm going to be able to pay you by the end of the month," she hears John tell Robin just as Robin moves to take his wallet from his pocket. Regina briefly wonders if it's eavesdropping when they're openly having conversation in front of her.

"It's nothing to worry about, John," Robin says as he plucks a few bills from his wallet and hands them to John. John though resolutely refutes it. He shakes his head with vigor as Robin hands him the money. "How are you going to earn if you don't take the money?" He chuckles.

"I've got enough customers," John insists. "Besides I won't have this if it weren't for you, so a few meals on the house shan't be a problem."

"As I said, it's not a problem," Robin insists.

It goes on back and forth for a while before Robin wins in the end as he slides the money into John's hand while shaking it, when they stood up to bid each other goodbye. John sighs exasperatedly, shaking his head, but decided not to argue further. Regina remains silent through the exchange.

When they walk out of the diner, they are without Roland who had begged his daddy to be allowed a sleepover with John's kids, which Robin had allowed. Regina isn't entirely sure what to say anymore as she steps into his car and they speed away to his home.

In no time at all, they make it to his house, and then he's parking right behind her car, and she feels so overwhelmed by everything that she's not sure whether to run away from him or run right to him.

She's very confused, and she needs to get her shit together.

"Would you like to come in for a drink?" Robin asks, breaking through her reverie.

She looks at him and bites her bottom lip, as she exhales loudly. She needs to be as far away from him as she possibly can. Her heart feels frail and one more minute with him would break her.

He mistakes her silence for something else though, as he spats at her with a touch of bitterness. "If you're worried about the neighbors, I have no doubt that they'd already reported back to your mother, so a few more minutes for a drink won't make any difference."

She looks at him and shakes her head. "It's not that," she tells him, and really it's not, though that's part of it. "I just…" she breathes deeply and then…she doesn't know what to say. She can't say no just because she's feeling things she's told herself not to feel anymore eleven years ago. Well, she can, but she'll be damned if she admitted it to him. "Alright," she says.

And what the heck. If she wants to convince herself that she's moved on, then she's going to have to learn to be around him without being attacked by her own emotions.

He doesn't say anything, only nods and climbs out of the car, moving to her side so he could open her door for her before she can. They make their way to his house in silence, and she follows him to the kitchen without a word.

He pours them both each a glass of whisky and he slides hers over. He takes a long sip of his drink, while she stares down at hers and frowns.

He sighs. "Alright, have at it," he tells her, and her head snaps at his direction.

There are so many things running through her head at the moment that she's not sure where to start. She's not entirely sure she wants to start.

She begins with the easier ones.

"You loaned John the money to start his business," she says and it's a statement of a fact more than a question but he nods anyway.

"I wouldn't say loan, exactly," he answers slowly. "I'm not expecting him to pay it, or rather, I don't want him to pay it back. I wanted to give it to him, but he insists. He's far off in his debt if I add in the interest, but I don't, because I don't care. I gave the money to him, and he wants to feel like paying it back, I'd let him."

"Even if he never fully pays it back?" she asks.

"Do you know where John used to work?" he asks and she shakes her head. "Nowhere, that's where. He got sacked from his job and then had been a homeless man without two pennies to rub together Regina, but he had a passion, he wanted to cook, and he could damn well cook. But guess who gets to decide his future? This fucking retarded society. The bank won't loan him any money because he hasn't got anything in his name. They get to decide whose dreams get fulfilled. But I'm not letting them do that, at least not to John. So I helped him. I gave him the money, and now he's thriving. He has a business of his own and a family, and he's happy. He decides that, Regina. He decides whether he gets to be happy or not, not this society, not some stupid bank with a snooty executive, not me…him. It's his life."

It's a dagger to the heart, a shade if he ever throws one and they both know it, but she doesn't want to argue, only swallows her tears back and nods. She isn't entirely sure what to do with herself at the moment. Robin is obviously the bigger, better person here.

"It's a noble thing, what you did Robin," she says sincerely. She's not saying it just because, she's saying it because it's the truth and she's never admired him more than she does at the moment.

He scoffs though and chugs the remaining liquor from his glass. "It's not noble," he argues. "I'm just helping John get what had been stolen from me." He goes quiet for a while as he pours another glass of whisky. "The right to be happy."

His words are ominous and meaningful. And then the silence that settles between them is pregnant with words unsaid and feelings not voiced, suppressed for the past eleven years.

"There's something else," he states as he peers up at her.

She looks down at her drink that she's barely touched, and then sighs. No, it's not everything, but it's seriously all she can handle right then.

"Come on, Regina, you might as well just tell me. After the last conversation we had at your house, I doubt it can be any worse."

He's right. It can't be any worse, just equally painful.

She gathers her courage around her and sighs before she speaks. "This house," she murmurs as she trails off. She doesn't need to complete her sentence though for him to understand.

"I built it," he says as he moves to stand right in front of her. The counter separates them, but not by much, not merely enough. He looks at her imporingly. "You should know, Regina. You should know."

She swallows thickly, feeling as though there is a lump that's lodged in her throat. Tears blur her vision as he continues to speak.

"It's everything we talked about, do you remember?" he asks, his voice hitching, faltering, as though tears might soon surge. "The tall glass windows, vaulted ceilings, open spaces and French windows, the marble counter tops, and cherry wood. Just like what we talked about..just out the forest, right by the lake." He ticks off the list, and it sends her right back to the time when everything had seemed so easy, so light—when all they had were dreams of a future they had been so sure would one day come to be.

It hadn't, and all they're left with are tears and bitter memories.

And this house.

"This house, I built it for you," he whispers into the little space between them as finally succeeded in eliminating the distance—he stands before her now, one hand to the counter, the other lying lax on his side.

"But how?" she asks, though she's breathless from the proximity. "You were already married to Marian."

"I told you Regina. It didn't mean that I stopped loving you," he murmurs. "I never stopped loving you, Regina. I never could, and I never will."

And then he's closing the gap between them, taking her lips in a kiss that stole her breath completely away.

And she's powerless to stop it, because deep down inside, she knows one thing: she wants this just as much, wants him just as much.

Eleven years apart be damned.


	5. Chapter 5

**_Five_ **

It's the first time in eleven years that their lips have touched, and it feels like she's in heaven. Regina isn't entirely sure who kissed who, who moved first, all that she knows is that they met half way, now his lips are pressed against hers—and it feels as though all the bitterness of yesterday is just that—a thing of yesterday. All the tears and the sadness and the regrets, the what ifs and the what could have beens, they're all nothing but a blur right now in her mind, a dull thudding noise that she ignores as she opens her mouth under his. At the back of her head, she hears her mother, hears herself, hears the whole of Storybrooke say that this is wrong, she shouldn't do it, but damn it, her heart speaks louder, and right now her heart wants  _this._

To be right here where she is, in Robin's arms where she's always believed she belongs in, and he kisses her as though he's a man starved and she the buffet, as though he's been waiting for so long to finally have this again— and he probably have. She knows she has. Though she tries not to admit to herself, or anyone, really, she's dreamt of a moment like this—when she's right here, with the man she's believed to be the love of her life, kissing him, reunited with him, as though no time has passed at all.

One of his hand grasps her hip, pulling her as close as he can without her falling from her chair, while the other comes up to cup the back of her head. She lets her arms wrap around his neck, letting him kiss her the way she knows they've always wanted to, and he doesn't disappoint—he swipes his tongue at the seams of her lips, asking for entrance to her mouth that she grants without second thought. And then it's a teeth clashing, tongue lashing, moan inducing kiss that makes her knees buckle and heart to pump in an unsteady pace.

If she doesn't stop now, she might do something she's not exactly sure she won't regret in the morning. Not that she'll ever regret ever being with him—in any way—just that she'll regret the circumstance, and she doesn't want to sully what they have,  _had,_  with that.

She needs an intervention—because she clearly cannot stop by herself.

Her intervention blessedly comes in the form of Robin's phone ringing from where it's sitting on the kitchen counter, and she pulls away, making him groan her name as his forehead falls against hers, his lips sneaking a kiss against the tip of her nose.

"You should get that," she mumbles, though her voice sounds gravelly and oddly not like her own, and she feels as though all her breath had been stolen away by that one kiss she'd wanted to go on forever and ever, until everything else around them disappears—no more past to think about, or parents to please, or kids that might or might not be alive, not past lovers or past regrets, just him and her.

His hand squeezes her hips and the other falls to hold on to her waist. "I think this is more important than just a blasted phone call," he murmurs, his hot breath hitting her face, sending shivers down her spine.

She wants him.

And she's sure that it's not such a good idea.

"What if it's Roland?" she asks, and he sighs because she's probably right. And nothing should ever come before a child.

He nods then, steals one more kiss from her lips that she allows before he pulls away and takes his phone. He doesn't leave the kitchen, only moves a few steps away from her and focuses on who he's talking to.

It's Roland, from what she can tell from his side of the conversation, and it looks as though he's just about to go to bed and had wanted to call his father to say goodnight. Perhaps a rotten timing for Robin, but honestly just the perfect timing for her.

She thinks that right then might be the best time to leave, to just run away and never look back, but after everything they have been through, she knows he deserves more than that, that they both do. And she can't leave this house just like that.

So she waits as he finishes his phone call, only fixes herself up and tries to regain her composure. When he does finish, he turns to her with an unreadable expression. He must be feeling like she does—confused with a thousand thoughts littering about her head, and she doesn't have the energy to decipher them.

"I'm sorry," he begins, his hand coming up to scratch the back of his head as he bites his bottom lip and looks at her with apologetic eyes.

She shakes her head. "There is no need," she tells him. "There's nothing more important than a child,  _your_ child."

And nothing should be, she knows that.

He moves closer to her, covers what little distance there is between them until he's standing in front of her. She's gotten off of her chair by now, so they're just standing there, in front of one another, waiting, gauging one another.

She makes the first move.

"What happened tonight, Robin," she begins, and she feels uneasy as he looks at her with the most open expression on his face. He doesn't quite look pleading, but there is certainly hope there, a need, a longing, and she doesn't know how to respond in the contrary, because it's what she feels too. She tries to stamp on it. "I don't regret it." And he breathes a sigh of relief. "But it can't happen again." She knows him well enough to know that a question is now at the tip of his tongue, and she continues. "I can't…I'm not ready for this. And I know you'd argue that we've had eleven years to prepare ourselves for this, but that isn't entirely true, because  _I_ have spent those eleven years trying to make myself believe that I'm over you. I convinced myself that I  _had_  to be over you, Robin, and for the past eleven years, I believed it." She releases a breath as she strives not to look at the blue orbs that she always falls deep into. The same blue eyes whose owner holds her heart—even after eleven years. "And now you're back, and you're here to,  _oh_ , I don't fucking know what you're here to do, but I do know that you being here, in my life, it will turn it around."

She tries to hold back the tears that she knows are coming, and for the most part, she is successful, but there is a lump in her throat that just won't go away and her vision is blurry, and if she doesn't go now, she knows that in the next few minutes, she will cry.

"And I'm just not ready for that, yet," she whispers the last words out, and before he can say another word or he can stop her, she's making her way out of his house, grabbing her coat on her way and then dashing to her car.

She makes very little attempt in trying to regain her composure or hold back her tears once she's successfully managed to pull out of his driveway and speed away to her own house. She's mastered the art of crying and driving when she'd been in Vassar, because she often had to do it after being so depressed and dejected at the loss of both her baby and the love of her life.

It feels somehow like she's back at that state again: losing her son and losing the man she loves. Though she's not entirely sure of her feelings for Robin (she knows it's strong, knows that it's consuming and confusing, but she's not sure if it  _is_  love, or if she's just trying to recapture what she believes she once lost, and how unfair would that be to him if that is the case?), she does feel like she's lost him again.

Between feeling a connection with Henry and having to give him back because of uncertainty, and losing Robin because of confusion, she wonders if history  _does_  tend to repeat itself.

**…**

Robin isn't sure what has just happened.

One minute he's floating in heaven, kissing the love of his life, the next he receives a call, and she's pulling away from him and then she's running out of his life.

He understands her, to some extent, understands her apprehension. He even understands why she must feel like she has to run away from him now, because it's all confusing to her, probably. He understands that though she's her own woman now, there is a part of Regina who will always be that little girl who feared and had desired nothing but the approval of her mother. He understands that.

He just wishes it isn't this way.

He wishes a lot of things, too, wishes that they'd never be separated at nineteen, wishes they'd had the chance to be a family. Maybe that would mean that he's not going to have the Roland he has now, and the thought disheartens him, sobers him, but at the same time he wonders if maybe, he and Regina would have their own little Roland. He wishes nothing is so bloody complicated.

But life is complicated and unfair and he's always going to be stuck wishing for a life that he's never going to get.

The loneliness settles on him as he looks around his empty house, and listens in to the loud silence of the night. He stares longingly at where she had been sitting only minutes ago, letting him kiss her like he had always dreamt that he would. But that seems to all be a distant memory now.

Maybe another memory to file under the thousands he already has of Regina—those he's always cherished and will continue to do so.

He thinks himself mad, sometimes, to still be loving the same woman after all these years, to be pining for her, still, when there are others who are pining for him. Yet, his heart isn't something he can give commands to, and his feelings cannot be told to change just because it hurts him, or just because they are not returned.

He feels as though he must suffer through life like this: with the only woman he's ever loved so near, yet so unbelievably unreachable. She's so far, so, so far from him.

And though she says that she's not ready for it yet, for the feelings, for the complete turnover of her life, and that in itself is very seductive in its promise of hope…he's long since accepted that hope might just be the most cruel thing anyone could ever have.

For it hurts far worse to have those crushed than to start accepting that nothing is ever going to come out of it.

**…**

The start of the week, after that, isn't a good one.

Sunday had been spent mostly in bed, with her blankets covering her whole body and she tries to bury herself underneath, along with her feelings. It hadn't worked of course, and Regina had devoted quite a lot (all) of her time staring up at the ceiling, wondering about all of her life choices.

Mainly, the ones she's made the last thirty something hours.

She had been almost thankful when Monday had finally come, and she could actually get back to work again to take her mind off things. Naturally, she'd never thought that she'd say that about work, but work is a great distraction, and she's found that at the middle of the day that Monday she'd barely thought about Robin, at all.

Well, okay she's thought of him a little (okay, a lot), but not as much as Sunday and that had been a bit of relief.

What isn't a relief, however, is that by three that afternoon, Belle's voice had sounded from the intercom, telling her that Cora had summoned her for dinner that night, and had said that in no uncertain terms was she to decline. Regina really cannot say that she's not anticipated it, because she had. It's part of what she'd been thinking about on Sunday. She knows Cora would have caught wind of her day with the Locksley boys, and she'd want to roast Regina about it (because grilling is too mild for Cora's tastes). Regina will hear the speech from a few weeks ago about how Robin is bad news, and would tell, not ask—Cora never asks, her not to talk to or see him ever again. Only, Cora would be about twenty times more acidic that she normally is. Her father would be there to intervene, to even it out and play the referee, but he can only do so much before Cora shuts him down and he'll remain quiet, only sending Regina some sympathetic glances and offering words of comfort and an extra minute in his embrace once Cora is finished with her tirade and is quite tired, excusing herself to go on upstairs and rest.

Regina can almost do a play by play of what will happen tonight in her head. She'd played out scenarios in her head too, preparing for what's to come.

But if Cora will be throwing punches, then Regina's decided to throw some of her own.

**..**

When Regina arrives in her parents' house, Cora doesn't even bother with pretenses. Mother greets her by the door, and ushers her in, slamming the door behind her. She then makes Regina sit on the couch and takes the seat across. Daddy is nowhere to be seen, and Regina is totally sure that he's been sent to get something so that Cora can give Regina a stern talking down without Daddy interfering.

And that's exactly the truth.

"How dare you disgrace this family?" Cora asks, ever the melodramatic. Regina resists the urge to roll her eyes. "You've been associating with that Locksley boy, again!"

"You're the one who lives next to the Locksleys, and used to be good friends with them," Regina snaps back, feeling defiant knowing she will have the last say in this. "And he has a name, Robin. Don't you remember how you used to call him?"

"You foolish girl," Cora exclaims as her fingers fold over in her palms to form a fist. She looks livid, looks like Regina has just committed the crime of the century, but Regina is not without an anger of her own. "You can't be seen hanging around him!"

"Why, mother?" Regina asks, staring at her mother. "Is it because it makes you feel guilty knowing you're the one who'd wrecked what Robin and I could have had? Is it because you know that you stole our happiness away from us, that you'd bullied Daddy and Robin's parents into doing as you said, into sending us apart, instead of letting us marry and letting me have our child!" Cora looks shocked for a moment and Regina nods. "Oh, yes, mother I know all about that."

"Don't be stupid, Regina!" Cora says angrily, her nose flaring. "You could not have survived if you had married Robin. You won't have gone to college and finished, you won't be the woman you've become today!"

"You're right, I'd be happier." She throws a piercing look at her mother as the anger pulsates through her every nerve. She wants to get out of here before her anger turns to tears, but she needs answers, and her mother is the only one who can give it to her.

"Regina? Cora?" Henry asks as he enters the house. He looks at his wife and daughter in confusion, and if Regina had any doubt that her father had no part in any of her mother's schemes, it's all gone now.

Regina ignores her father and focuses on Cora. "Tell me something, Mother, did my baby really die or did you ship him off to an orphanage but made me believe that he did die?" she asks, and watches as all the color from her mother's face disappear. Cora's hands are shaking, too, Regina notes, and she breathes through the pain of the confirmation of her mother's betrayal.

"What are you talking about?" Cora asks, as she tries to recover. "Your baby was dead."

Regina closes her eyes as anger radiates through her. "Stop lying to me," she growls when she finally opens her eyes. She looks at her father who looks so shocked about this current revelation. "You took my son and brought him to an orphanage, all the while making me believe that he is dead, that I'll never see him again, and for what mother?!"

"I was trying to do what was best for you!" Cora erupts, and Henry gasps as the truth unravels.

Years and years of pain and loneliness come back to haunt Regina and she wants to lash out, wants to hurt her mother in every possible way because who is she to decide that? She might be Regina's mother, and Regina might have felt like giving her son up for adoption had been her only option, but Cora had no right to take away her child's existence.

"Did you really, Cora?" Henry asks in disbelief. He looks stricken, like he's not entirely fathom how his wife could do something like that.

Neither could Regina.

"I was doing what was best for Regina at the time," Cora, once more, defends herself. "Knowing that her child was out there somewhere, just…it would have killed her, it wasn't good for her."

"It was for me to decide, not for you. You don't always know what's best for me," Regina says, her voice dripping with anger.

All she wants is to rush to Boston and take her little boy home. But she knows this is not exactly how any of this works.

"I'm your mother, of course I know."

"Like you knew it was best to send me to Phoenix on my own and pregnant?" she bursts. "Or that you knew it was best for me for you to not dissuade Keith and his unwanted attentions on me? Did you know best, then, mother?" Cora looks away from her, and Regina can see the remorse from her face, but Regina knows it will be a cold day in hell before Cora could ever admit that she's wrong. "It's my life. I should be the one to make the choices for me, not you." Regina pauses to breathe, and the silence that fills the house is too loud. "I hope one day I can forgive you, mother, but for now I want you stay the hell out of my life!"

And with that she stands from the couch and walks out of the house she grew up in, without ever looking back.

**…**

Robin tells himself that he's a grown man, a man who's already suffered eleven years of going through life without Regina Mills and had survived it. He has Roland, he has his friends, and he's got a lot more going on in his life than he ever has in eleven years (it's partially a lie since Regina has been part of his life eleven years ago). And there are days when he actually believes it, actually gets himself to forget her even for a few minutes, because he's trying to face the undeniable reality that there might not be anything that's going to come out of that.

But then the heart is a traitorous organ that doesn't like to listen to reason, and hope blooms in his chest every time he thinks of their kiss and the way she'd responded in his arms. It's a catastrophe waiting to happen, he knows, and he knows just as well that whatever happens, it's not going to be an easy road—but he can't help but think that despite what lays ahead, he'd rather he faces them with her by his side.

Fat chance, since she's not even able to make up her mind yet.

Still, he thinks there is time.

He rallies his own belief and self esteem with the idea that there is time, and that he's patient, he can wait. He's waited eleven years, and he'll wait eleven years more if that is what it takes, though he hopes it won't take that long.

So he'll wait.

Though, he supposes he cannot really blame himself if he sends a bouquet over at Regina's office on a Tuesday morning, just to maybe remind her that he does exist and his affections can't quite be erased. He'd wondered all day Monday if he should send her flowers, not wanting to annoy her but wanting her to know she's remembered had been a topic of debate in his brain, and then he'd decided to just screw it, he'll send her flowers. He doesn't put anything in the card, just signs Robin Locksley in them and waits for the inevitable reaction. If she tosses it he'll never know, and maybe that's for the best.

He can't say he isn't disappointed however, when he'd gotten no calls from her that day, though he can't really say he's not expecting it. So, and because he's nothing if not a stubborn fool still stupidly in love with her, he sends her another bouquet the next day, and the next, and the next, right through Friday, to which her assistant calls him, informing him that ' _Miss Mills is not in for the week, but if the flowers are beautiful, and I'll make sure she knows you sent them when she comes back.'_

He's not entirely sure if he's relieved or disappointed by that. Though he does wonder what she's gotten up to, because for all the time he's known her, he knows she's not the one who likes to skip a day. She never slacks on school, no matter how many times he's tried to convince her back in high school and thinks that she might have brought that attitude all the way through adulthood.

He doesn't know that as a fact though, because loathe might he be to admit it, she's a grown woman, has grown into someone more than what he remembers she used to be, and he wants to know the woman, wants to know her.

He knows the girl Regina Mills used to be, and now he vows to know the woman she's become.


	6. Chapter 6

**_Six_ **

The days that had followed her confrontation with her mother had been difficult for Regina. It is one thing to think that she knows the truth, to speculate about what had happened and look at theories and accept some of them to be more likely than the other. But it is another, entirely, to know that one of them is true, and it's not the one that's easiest to swallow.

Her mother had claimed that she'd only wanted the best for her, but the way Regina looked at it, her mother had wanted her broken, had wanted her isolated and desolate, grieving the loss of her first love and her first (and probably only) child. Cora had wanted Regina to come crawling for her help and further submit to her will. She'd wanted Regina to have no one else to turn to but her. She wonders if her mother still possesses a heart, with the way she had so easily discarded her own grandson.

But there isn't much to ponder there anymore, after all, what is done is done. Now, Regina has to face the new reality that her son had never died in the first place, and he's there in Boston, living in an orphanage when all this time, he could have been living with her instead. And while she knows there isn't anything she could do about her mother's state of heartlessness, she can do something about her son's state of homelessness, and she  _will_  do something about it.

She needs to.

Now that she's found him, she can no longer possibly be apart from him. She'll do everything that she can to get him back, right there beside her where he should have always been.

The pain in her chest at the thought that her son as out there, living in an orphanage when he could be living with her, has become even more intense as the days pass by, so she phones her friend Mallory Page and pleads for her help.

Mallory Page is an old friend of hers from the University. They were sorority sisters, though Mal had been on her last year when Regina had been a freshman. They had bonded after Regina had helped a drunken Mallory out. Regina had been on her way home from the library when she'd seen a drunken Mallory struggling to get up from the pavement. And since Regina had recognized her as one of the seniors, she'd helped her get from the pavement to the sorority house. Mallory in turn had taken Regina under her wing. They had been of the same circumstance, pregnant out of wedlock. At that time, Regina had thought that her son had died, while Mal's kid had just been given up for adoption.

Since then, they've been friends, even as Mal had gone on to law school and had become a lawyer, dubbed as the "Dragon Mistress" by her colleagues (and often by Regina herself) because she takes no shit from anyone and has a temper that leaves anyone scramming away from her. She handles all of Regina's legal business, and Regina trusts her more than anyone. The distance from Storybrooke to Long Island where Mallory now resides with her daughter (that she'd looked for and taken back after graduating from law school), means nothing to the both of them. They have been able to maintain their friendship despite the miles that separated them.

Regina begs Mal to sort this out for her, and the desperation in her voice spurs the other woman to motion because in another minute, she's instructing Regina to get both hers and Henry's DNA tested (luckily Regina saved the spare toothbrush she had Henry use the night he appeared on her doorstep), and she talks of legal actions to be made, adoption papers to be prepared and set to motion as soon as possible. It makes Regina's head spin, but she's thankful by the end of the conversation. Mal promises her that she might at least get custody of Henry, meanwhile.

Regina isn't sure how Mal is going to do that, no idea, not at all, but she puts all her faith in her friend. It pays off in the end though, mercifully, because the next time Mal calls her, less than a week later, it's to bring her good news: Henry will come to live with her for awhile, while they sort this out and Regina can go collect him in a week's time.

"It will be alright, Regina," Mallory assures her. "I'll help you in every way that I can. I can't promise you any results, just that there will be one, and I sure as hell am going to try to make it favorable for you."

That is just as much that Regina could ask for.

Regina could just about cry in relief, and she thanks her friend profusely, not entirely sure how to repay her for this. This isn't part of her job as Regina's lawyer, but she's a miracle worker and she's made it happen. Now, they only have to wait for the results of the DNA testing.

And then she can decide her course of action after.

**…**

It's been weeks since he'd last seen her. It's nothing out of ordinary, really, because he's used to that. He's been trying (and not successfully, he'd say) to ignore her presence for eleven years, so it'd been nothing new. But the need to see her, the itch to drive past her house and march in just to be able to hold her once more, had been gnawing at him and it had been so hard to ignore. The images of her with Roland burned in his mind aren't of much help to him either, because all he wants is to see those again, see her holding his son, talk to him in that patient way that Regina seems to reserve only for kids, because the Regina he knows would have snapped at anyone who asked her questions incessantly…but not Roland, Roland she answered and listened to.

And he knows better than anyone that he should  _not_ be entertaining thoughts like that, thoughts about her of any kind, at all, but it's hard to resist. He's been trying and failing for the past eleven years. But he tries, tries to put a restraint on himself, tries not to send flowers even when he wants to flood her whole house and office with it. He tries not to give in to every puppy dog eyes and every cute little pout Roland gives him when he begs to go see his R'gina again, even when Robin wants the same thing.

He tries, because she had asked for space, and his last few attempts at trying had fallen flat, and really, there's just so much rejection one can take.

It doesn't mean that he's not been tempted, though. And it doesn't mean she's not all he thinks about.

**…**

All Regina could think about is Henry.

And Robin and Roland, though she doesn't let herself go down that road because it leads to so many places she doesn't really want to go to—places like: regret and longing, bitterness, anger, amongst many others.

Instead, she zones in on the date Mal had given her to be able to pick up her son, and counts down on it. The days pass by almost too slowly, however, that when the time came for Regina to pick Henry up, she had almost jumped to her car and sped away—willing away the distance from Storybrooke to Boston to just not be there, or half imagining that the few hundred miles would only take less time to travel than what should be.

She had tried to calm herself down however, although marginally, and tried to pace herself down. She'll get there eventually, and she'd see her son again, and then the distance wouldn't matter. What's more important is that she's sure now that she would get to him, soon. She's just too excited.

On her way, she thinks of the DNA test that had been started and processed at the beginning of the week. There would be a couple more weeks of waiting for the results, though Mal has been trying to do her best to speed it up a bit more, but there is no more doubt left in her mind that Henry is hers.

Her mother had almost as good as admitted it to her. Besides, there is too much of her and Robin in Henry for it not to be true.

She knows it.

She feels it.

And it's given her hope: hope that maybe she can still have a chance for happiness. Maybe she will and can have her happy ending—though she'd thought all along that the part of her which believed in such frivolity, the young and naïve Regina who'd stared at the world with rose colored glasses had died when everything she'd loved had been ripped from her. Maybe, that Regina isn't so dead after all. Maybe there's still that Regina left inside of her. Maybe that Regina can still have what she'd wanted, maybe not  _all_  of it, but some of it.

It's something to look forward to, anyway.

And look forward to it, she does.

The week leading up to her meeting her son, she'd been running around like a headless chicken to make everything perfect for him. In a short period of time, she's managed to furnish his room the best of her knowledge with what little boys like, and filled her pantry with snacks that are healthy and those that are simply bought to spoil him.

She'd even told her father about it. She'd tell Cora, but she doesn't know if it'd go over well with the older woman. Besides, Regina had meant it when she'd said that for now she wanted her mother out of her life. Until Cora learned to grow a heart and how to love without conditions, Regina isn't about to let her son anywhere around her mother. It might be wrong, and a part of her does feel guilty about it, but that part has been easily tampered down by the part of her that wants the best for Henry. And every single part of her recognizes that Cora might not exactly be that.

So, she drives down to Boston with every intention of getting her son and taking her mother out of the equation for a while. She's given a lot of thought about telling the boy's father too—of adding him to the said equation—that has never been far from her mind, but she's been putting it off, there is plenty of time for it—maybe she ought to wait until everything has been settled and confirmed.

But none of that matters to her as she makes her way down to Boston to fetch Henry. It matters even less when he runs right to her arms, clinging to her neck, and she peppers him with kisses, the love she already feels for him unbound and unbidden.

In her heart, she knows, she feels, she believes that this boy who had come knocking on her door, claiming to be her son, really  _is_  her son. The way her heart beats and overflows with love tells her it is the truth. Sometimes, she wonders if it could be true, the attachment she feels towards the boy, or if she is only projecting her feelings for her the child she's never gotten the chance to love—but really, what she feels is real.

This is her child, she  _has_  a child, and now she's gotten the second chance to love him. She feels reborn.

It's a start of a new life…one she's about to live with her son.

**..**

It takes a while to settle down.

But when it does, when everything has been settled and Henry has adjusted somewhat to living with her—it takes him a few weeks to believe her that there is nothing in the fridge that is forbidden to eat, there is not ration and he can eat whatever and whenever he pleases, and everything in his room is his and no one else's and he's been given those things without a need for anything in exchange (though she sees the doubt in his eyes, he's warming up to the idea)—it's nothing but pure bliss.

Having her son around is pure bliss.

And everything seems so perfect.

Of course, there are hiccups, but none had been a big deal, nothing that can overcome the happiness she has about her son coming to live with her.

Though, there is one thing that Regina can't help but notice. Henry seems to avoid having to call her anything, usually gesturing or touching her when he needs anything—and it's something she wants to rectify but doesn't know yet how to broach the subject exactly.

She doesn't want to rush him or think he's doing something wrong. She doesn't want him to feel uncomfortable, so quite frankly, she's not entirely sure how she's going to open the subject.

Henry saves her, though, when one night, he does the asking himself.

"Should I call you mom?" the boy asks her. The question takes her by surprise, though it shouldn't really have.

At this point, the results have been out—the DNA tests have come back positive—and it is with joyful tears that she'd accepted the news that her gut feeling had been right, Henry  _is_ her son, the son she'd thought has been dead all along.

The adoption has also been underway, and they have slowly been settling down to a routine, both of them. She is even about to enroll Henry to the only elementary school in town, much to her mother's consternation (and since she still hasn't talked to Cora since that fateful dinner they had, but she had been talking to her father, he'd been the one to deliver the news that Regina had found her son, brought him home and is now enrolling him to a school in Storybrooke)—she cannot seem to fathom the magnitude of gossip that would break out in town.

Regina doesn't really care. Let them talk all they want—at least she'd be with her son. She doesn't really care what they think anymore.

"You can call me anything you want, Henry," she tells him, giving him a gentle hug and a kiss on his forehead. She smiles at him, wanting nothing more than for him to call her  _mom_ , but knowing that does take time.

The boy only nods and beams at her. And it is since then that he's begun calling her  _mom_ , sending a feeling of overwhelming delight right through her heart, every time he does.

It does remain however, the question of the boy's paternity—not so much as who it is, but more on how to tell him. She wonders how he would react. The boy they all thought was dead all this time, isn't so dead after all. She doesn't know how to tell him that.

It had been hard enough to tell him way back eleven years ago that she was pregnant, when they had been fresh out of senior year, young and scared of what their parents would say, and on their way to the great things their parents have planned out for them.

It had been hard enough to have given him a son, only for that son be taken away from them unceremoniously. It is hard to face him again now and tell him that their son is back, possibly for good,  _hopefully_.

She wouldn't even want to imagine how that conversation would go.

She's been lucky enough that Henry hasn't started asking about his father, but she does know that he would, and she would have to tell him. No secrets are ever left unrevealed, after all.

**…**

Robin Locksley does not like gossip. He had suffered enough of it in his lifetime, starting from the moment he moved back to Storybrooke after dropping out of University on his third year. Granted, his record is far from spotless—he used to drink himself to oblivion in the first few years of his return, befriended the wrong sort, and stole and destroyed things for fun before he had decided to clean up his act and get himself together—still, he had suffered enough of it. Even now, as he lives as a recluse and cares very little for the other residents of the town, he knows he's being talked about: the crazy Brit by who lived at the edge of the forest, right near the lake, in that crazy white house with all the windows, who got left by his wife with their only son, who dreamed the crazy dream, and gave away a lot of money to help others. His whole life might as well have been broadcast and splashed across every newspaper in town. He doesn't care very much to have a repeat, so he keeps to himself, and does about his business with little interaction from the outside world. He doesn't listen to gossip and he doesn't participate in spreading them.

Storybrooke, however, is a very little town with very little entertainment other than speculating with the lives of its residence. And sometimes, news filters through and reaches Robin's ears. Most of the time, Robin would pay it no mind, it's none of his business, but there are certain people in this town who interest him more than they should.

Regina Mills is one of those people.

And when news broke out that Regina Mills had been going about town with a boy by her side, no more than ten years of age, it had piqued his interests so much, he'd been tempted to go out there and ask her about it. If only he was sure that there is no bad blood between them, he might have. But there is, given their history and what they used to be, and so he doesn't bother asking, instead he listens to his men talk about it, listens intently at the gossiping patrons of  _Granny's_.

There isn't much that they know about it, however, other than speculations—some would say that she's going to adopt the boy, some say that he's her son that she's kept for all these years, and any or none of them could be right. He, for one, knows more truth about Regina Mills than any of them combined, but he isn't even sure what the truth is.

He does know her though, knows her better than anyone in this town, sometimes even better than she knows herself, and he knows that she won't do anything that might anger her mother or ruin the reputation her family had built for so long. She won't do anything without thinking about it so much, she is calculating and always sure, and this…well, whatever this is, it cannot have been a spur of the moment thing, or something without reason.

Still, it bothers him, bothers him so that when he had been in  _Granny's_  one day, having lunch with his son, he hadn't been able to stop gawking at her when she entered the establishment with the boy everyone had been talking about. A hush fell on the crowd, and everybody sat on the edge of their seat, watching the owner of the  _Forbidden Fruit_  as she makes her way up to the counter, hand clasping the little boy's, and head held high.

He feels for her, it can't have been easy being stared at—he knows how much she hates it, and so he tries not to stare at her any more than he should have. He focuses his attention instead to his son and the food before them. But it is rather hard to do so, and so when the boy she's holding turns his head and has a look around, Robin had not been able to stop himself from staring at him too.

The boy looks familiar, like he's seen him before and just could not place, but it cannot be possible, because Robin won't have forgotten meeting him, he rarely ever forgets meeting anyone. But those eyes, those vibrant brown eyes speak to him, as though he's seen them before.

His gaze locks with the young boy's, and for a moment, time stops, and Robin's heart pounds in his chest, blood roaring against his ears. Robin swallows, but it's difficult, the lump in his throat is hard and heavy to swallow. The young boy stares back at him with wide eyes, though there is no recognition in the brown orbs. When Regina turns and sees who the boy had been looking at, their eyes meeting and electricity floating in the air as her eyes widen and his soften, it clicks.

It all just clicks.


	7. Chapter 7

**Seven**

She sees it the moment everything falls into its rightful places and he makes the connection, sees the puzzle in all its glory—completed and put together.

Somehow, it takes her by surprise.

It has been eleven years, yet he still manages to take her by surprise.

He shouldn't be able to do that, she'd told herself over and over that time had passed and there is nothing there anymore, but that isn't entirely true, no, and now she is hit by the realization that there  _is_  something there, there always have been.

She can't tell for sure what prompted her reaction upon seeing him staring at her son, how she had gasped and her eyes widened almost comically. He must know by now. There is no hiding it, and there was never really any chance to from the beginning. And it eats at her, gnaws at her being as she makes her way to the mill, to meet her father and give him a chance to meet his grandson for the very first time.

Beside her, Henry sits quietly, oblivious to everything as he looks out the window and peers through the sceneries. She is nervous, so nervous that she's gripping the steering wheel so hard that her knuckles turn white. When she pulls the car over to a stop in front of her father's office, she's already shaking.

"Mom?" her sweet boy asks, and she can never describe to him how wonderful it is to hear him call her that, as short as it had been since they had found each other. "Are you okay?"

Her lips tighten into a line and she gives him a stiff nod. She schools her face into something akin to being alright, and turns to smile at him. "I'm fine, sweetheart," she lies. She's not alright, not at all, but he doesn't need to know that. "Let's go meet your grandpa, hmm?"

Henry's smile is enough brighten up her spirits and chase away some of her anxiety. He nods eagerly and takes his seatbelt off, throwing the door of her Mercedes open as gently as an excited ten year old can, and shuts it close again. She laughs as she spies him waiting for her to gather the food from the backseat and lock the car, so they can go meet her daddy.

Both Henry's had been excited for this for a while now. It had taken her a few weeks to have Henry settled enough to meet family members. And although Henry Sr. had been more than excited to meet his grandson (the effect if which had been that he has barely talked to his wife out of sheer frustration and anger), he'd waited until the little boy is ready.

And Regina thinks that he  _is_  now. Perhaps, even more so. She thinks they would get along well. Actually, she expects they would. Her father has a way with children.

But as far as her expectations are, this isn't quite a part of it—the moment when the two Henrys of her life finally meet, one shy but eager, and the other excited and tearful. She finds herself tearing up at the sight of them, too, feels her heart clench and expand inside of her chest as the two of them bridge what little distance there is between them, and her father crouches to hug the young boy, his very own grandson.

It is such an emotional scene that Regina's heart breaks and mends simultaneously at the sight of it.

"Oh Darling, he's precious," her father whispers on her ear as her son helps prepare their lunch for them on the table.

Regina, choked up with her tears, couldn't do anything but nod her agreement. Yes, her boy is precious.

"Does  _he_  know?" her father asks then, and she whips her head around sharply, staring at her father in surprise and in guilt. She shakes her head mutely, she hasn't told  _him_  in many words, after all—and her father pats her shoulder sympathetically. "You used to be able to tell him everything, Regina."

That is true, she  _used_  to. "Yeah, before all the disaster that had happened between us and their family," she reminds her father gently.

It was all in the past now. What she used to be and what he used to be to her are long gone, replaced by mistakes and the regrets over decisions they hadn't been able to make.

Her father sighs softly. "You'll have to tell him, it's his son too. He has the right to know."

If he doesn't already, is all Regina could think of.

**…**

Robin watches them leave the diner, with Regina all but shoving the boy out the door in the gentlest way that is possible. It seems that there isn't much to say about her reaction and how now things seem to come together and fall apart in his mind all at the same time.

It makes him angry.

It's hard not to be angry at the situation.

And at  _her_.

It's hard not to be angry at her from keeping this from him. Though even he would admit to himself that he's not entirely too sure just how true his thoughts are. He wonders if he thinks that way because deep inside, it's what he wants, and he's only angry now because he's not sure if it's the truth. Well, that, and that he knows Regina, knows that this isn't something impulsive and she's a woman of reason-well, perhaps, except when she can't really explain it.

It makes him frustrated.

That boy...really, he could be anyone. He could be just some random child that Regina's decided to share her home to. Or maybe, it isn't even that complicated and he's just a nephew or a relative, though Robin is pretty sure that he's met almost everyone of Regina's family-those that they are close enough to matter, anyway-having dated her for so long, and he knows that none of them had a son when he and Regina had been together.

He reminds himself that it had been such a long time ago anyway, and that so many things can happen in eleven years, and he can't be entirely sure. For all he knows, the boy could be a son of her friend from college that she'd agreed to babysit meanwhile. And that's the thing, he  _can't_ be sure.

Because, the thing is, he and Regina  _did have_  a boy. They had a son, a boy who would be of the same age had he lived. And this boy that Regina's been spotted around town with-he's very much alive. So, suffice it to say, it frustrated Robin to no end that he can't really make sense of any of this.

He wonders briefly if it's only his desire to see his son with Regina, for him— _Henry—_ to still be alive that has him thinking like this and feeding this delusion, clouding his judgment. He's fully aware of the reality that their son is dead—Regina's told him so—and so whatever theory his whacky brain had concocted is nothing but that—just a whacky theory, an enticing fallacy that will break his heart in two when he comes down from the high and realize that it's really nothing but false hope and delusion. Yet, his stubborn holds on to that hope, lets him live in the fantasy that maybe, just maybe his son  _is_  alive.

He knows he shouldn't care—Regina had made clear of what she feels is right (though not of what she wants)—and really it's been eleven years, holding on just hurts more now than moving on and letting go.

But that's just it—he can't fucking move on, can't fucking let go.

He tries to tamp down the frustration, tells himself over and over and over and over that her business isn't his to care about anymore, hasn't been for more than eleven years now, until he almost actually believes in it. Well, at least until he's heard what the boy's name is, and then he can no longer say that this is not really his business anymore.

Because when he's heard that the boy's name is Henry, he feels like it's just too much of a coincidence, and that coincidences like that—they don't grow on trees, waiting for someone to walk across them. And suddenly, his delusion, his whacky theory no longer feels all that whacky.

**…**

Regina watches her son as he pores over at almost every picture Mama Odie shows him, giggling at the stories behind them. Henry Sr. himself had told Henry Jr. about the things his mother had gotten up to back in the day earlier when they visited him, but Mama Odie is a gifted story teller, with a very sharp memory, and she remembers some of the memories in a way that Regina or even Henry no longer do—in great detail, and she manages to regale the stories with candor and enthusiasm that has Henry asking for more.

Regina is lucky enough that the photos of her and Henry's father had been tucked away neatly in a box stored at the back of her closet all these years. Though a majority of the stories Mama Odie has told (and the majority of Regina's life, to be honest) includes Robin in a way, Mama Odie has told it in a way that downplays Robin's part in them. It might not be the best and smartest thing they all could do, but there are questions that Regina just isn't willing to deal with at the moment.

And thoughts she's just not willing to entertain right now.

Though, she supposes there isn't really much to worry about. Surely it would be easy to just tell her son who his father is, or tell the father about him—it isn't like Robin has not been frothing at the mouth to meet their son. The only thing that hinders her is the fact that she had told him, quite clearly that their son is supposedly dead. What are the chances that she'd find the said son and suddenly, he's not so dead anymore, and she's even able to bring him home?

She doubts that  _that_ would go over well, to be honest.

Not to mention the fact that things will change when both father and son eventually find out that they  _are_ father and son and they'd meet…Regina can't say she's prepared for that moment, and isn't totally sure she is ready for the effect of that not only to her emotions and heart, but also her life.

All the times she'd wished and dreamt of that particular moment—of Robin and Henry together—only it had been under different circumstances: like maybe she and Robin had never been forced apart, and that she'd never had to give Henry up unknowingly and made to believe that her son was dead, and maybe Roland would be hers and Robin's, not his and Marian's, and maybe they would be on their way to baby number three-a girl this time. They would probably be living in that house by the forest, and she'd not suffer from the heartbreak of wondering how all that would feel if all of that was her reality and not just something she would imagine and had tucked at the back of her brain, to bring out and look at when she feels particularly masochistic and wants to stare heartbreak in the eyes.

So maybe she'll not have the house, or the baby girl, or Robin and Roland, but she does have Henry and that's good enough. Her son  _is_ good enough, and there is no need to wish for so many other things. And when she looks at Henry and he smiles up at her with adoration and wonder, happiness and amazement, she almost believes it.

**…**

Robin paces back and forth behind his parked car, right on Mifflin Street, fists clenched, eyes looking up from time to time to glare at the house on the 108th.  _She_ is home, and to absolutely no surprise to him either. It's a Saturday, and he's been in the same town as her long enough to know that she rarely ever works on a Saturday. And he's willing to be his house that she's even less inclined to work on the weekends these days considering she now has a young boy following her around00a boy he's almost too sure is the same boy he's been duly informed has been dead since birth.

Which is why he's even here at all (fuming and glaring at her house as if it had personally offended him)—because of the thought that she might have lied to him about their son. She had told him, had said it right in face that Henry—their son—is dead, has been dead before he even drew his first breath, yet here she is, with a boy which looks exactly like him, with the same name their boy had apparently been named. And yes, it might be nothing but a coincidence that all these things add up to produce a completely incorrect and irrelevant answer, but somehow there is a feeling in his gut telling him that when he added up 2 and 2 and ended up with a 4.5, he's not actually that far off the mark.

His anger builds at every thought, and then he suddenly feels like ripping that door open and shaking her, demanding for a reason—a good fucking reason that prompted her to lie to him.

It makes him furious beyond belief, but he tries to remind himself once more that Regina is a woman of reason, of calculation and rational thoughts. She never does things without thinking it over, and almost always over thinking. So whatever this mess up is, whatever the situation might be, she has a reason behind it—it's yet to be determined whether or not he'd like the reason.

He calms himself a little with that thought. He tries to even his breathing, inhaling deeply and exhaling loudly, slowly but surely unclenching his tight fists before he closes his eyes and tells himself that if he lets his anger rule over, neither of them would get anything accomplished and he will only succeed in backing Regina into a corner and raising her shackles up, making her hide behind the shell she uses to keep people out and to keep herself and her emotions locked in. And honestly, he doesn't want that, not now, because the only person who could even answer the questions he has is her.

And so he gives himself a few more minutes before he makes his way up her driveway and onto her porch steps, raising his fist and knocking on her door. It's silent, as it usually is in Storybrooke, and it's late—the sun is just about to set—and Robin's not entirely sure that this is the time for this, but then he asks himself if there really is ever a time for this…is there?

Suddenly, the door opens and a boy comes peeking out, looking up at him with wonder in his eyes. Behind the half closed door, he hears some commotion, and then Regina saying something like, "Let me or Mama Odie…" which tapers right off when she gets to the door and finds him there, staring at Henry (he finds himself doubting less and less that this boy is theirs as he watches the expression on the boy's face which looks entirely like Regina's). Robin could only imagine his expression and it's probably simply odd.

"Robin," she breathes out, as though winded.

He pulls his gaze away from the boy momentarily to shift his eyes on her. She looks like she just saw a ghost, like a deer caught in headlight, and Robin would laugh at her absolutely adorable expression if only they were the same people they were 11 years ago, if only they were not in this situation right now. A sinking feeling dawns on him—he's now sure, cannot possibly be wrong about this now, and he feels anger bubbling inside him again, all his efforts at calming himself down going down the drain, even as he tells himself that he does not want to and should not be showing that to  _their_  son.

"Regina," he mutters, a greeting, a warning, at this point it doesn't even really matter anymore. His tone is curt, and he looks at her unblinkingly—anger pure and unbridled in his eyes.

" _Mom_?" Henry pipes out, alarm coloring his tone, and it's like arrows shooting through Robin's heart as that one word rings out in his ear and does it.

**…**

That does it.

"Mom," her son almost squeaks, and Regina can feel the fear coming out of him in waves. Robin is technically still a stranger and his tone isn't doing much to convince their son that he's not a threat. Henry, as young as he is, is a perceptive young boy, and it gets him on alert mode when someone is emitting the same vibe that Robin is now.

Panic.

Panic registers to her, though a tad bit belatedly, and it intensifies when Robin's eyes widen at the simple three letter word uttered by one little boy. He shifts his gaze from her to their son—which she is sure that he's certain without a question is  _their_  son—and she opens her mouth to speak, willing herself to find the words to attempt to explain this, but none come out. She opens her mouth again, only to close it three seconds later.

"Mom?" Henry repeats, tugging on her blouse.

She snaps out of it then, and seemingly so does Robin, and she tries to ground herself to the present, turning to her son with a soft, reassuring smile.

"Why don't you go and see if Mama Odie's finished with the brownies," she tells him, trying to get him out of earshot for what was about to come next.

Henry beams and nods, running back inside the house towards the kitchen where Mama Odie is. Regina stares after him, trying to stall some more, just so she could calm her nerves down. She knows Robin would be furious, knows he has the right to be, she's just not sure she's ready to face him just yet…

"Regina," he growls, making her turn and stare at him wide-eyed. His fists are clenched at his sides and his brows are furrowed, his nostrils flaring at every breath.

Regina chews on her bottom lip anxiously for a second, trying to find a way to calm him. It isn't like she's done something terribly wrong…okay, so she might have neglected to tell him that their son  _might_ not be dead after all after he'd showed up in her house and claimed that he's hers, but then she still had to verify the fact, and after that, the process had been a little slow on her part. When she had confirmed the veracity of Henry's claims, it had been a good time to tell Robin then, but both her and Henry had been settling and adjusting to their new life together as each other's family…and there had barely been a time to go to Robin and tell him.

Of course, it had nothing to do with her cowardice or downright refusal to face the reality of Robin knowing that their son is alive, too. Of course it has nothing to do with that at all.

Regina feels Robin grip her elbow firmly, not enough to hurt but enough that it has her stopping her thoughts to glance up at him with trepidation. And maybe a tad bit of fear. She isn't entirely sure how to handle a very angry Robin  _now_ , or this situation. Had it been years ago, she might have just gotten into her tiptoes and kissed him silly and have his blood roaring in a downward direction.

"Regina," he repeats, voice low and eyes glinting. Holy Mother, he is  _really_  mad. She would be scared of him if only she didn't know him as well she does. "We need to—," he begins, but she knows, she already knows.

She cuts him off there. "I know," she says, pulling her arm and grabbing his hand in hers instead. She pulls him to her backyard, away from Henry's little ears and Mama Odie's prying eyes (though Regina is convinced that her beloved Nanny has eyes and ears at the backs of her head).

She leads him to the more secluded part, just away from the driveway but still within the house's view. She lets go of him then in there and turns away as she grapples her brain for some sort of an explanation.

"Why the fuck did you lie to me Regina?" he demands, blowing his tops off, before she can even begin to form a coherent string of thought. She's half scared that he would alert Henry and Mama Odie all the way from the house with the volume of his voice—and she doesn't even want to think about her neighbors who might hear (who are already probably gossiping about the fact that Robin's car is parked outside her house—she fucking  _hates_  this town).

She looks up at him, then, feeling slightly offended (or maybe hurt—though she's not willing to admit that to him or to herself because she doesn't want to know what it means). She doesn't remember him ever being angry at her like this for anything—and she's known and loved him for so long. He's never yelled at her,  _ever,_  not even that time she had accidentally snapped his bow and broken it—she'd cried then, quaking in fear that he might her, but he'd only consoled her and told her that it didn't matter, it was just a bow, he can get another one, though they both knew what that bow had meant to him, it was his first bow, the bow that had won him many a competition back when they were younger, and she had scrapped and saved her allowance then just so she could get him a new one in time for Christmas.

This outburst is not all that unfounded, in fact he has every right to it, but it is new, and it still stings.

"I—," she tries but her mind goes blank. Sure it's not that difficult to say ' _Yes, Henry is your son, I found him, he's not dead after all,'_ especially now that he seems to be without doubt regarding the matter. But it hardly seems appropriate…he needs some sort of explanation still. And for the life of her, she doesn't really know what to say. In her defense, she hadn't thought it lying back then, it hadn't felt like it—she'd been verifying facts.

"And don't tell me…oh bloody fuck, I don't even know what you think you'd say that could get you the hell out of this," he adds when her silence stretches out for too long. He's angry, so angry—he's going red all over and that vein in his neck (that she'd loved to nibble on and would still love to—though those are not the most appropriate thoughts to have right at that moment) is popping and visible.

"Look, okay," she begins, breathing in. "It's a long story, Robin, and I'm sorry I had not told you right away, but I swear I was going to. I  _am_  going to." She is almost pleading as she touches his arm and looks at him. She's grateful when he doesn't attempt to pull away and she squeezes lightly, in a bid to plead for him to understand. "It's just too complicated."

He sighs, anger seemingly being knocked down a few pegs. He looks back at her with a little bit of softness she's used to seeing from him. "I'm all ears now," he tells her and it's stern and books no room for arguments or protests.

She mirrors his sigh and nods. She owes him this, at least. He has to know what really happened, and so she leads him further into her backyard, where there are seats and swing sets, urging him to seat beside her when she plops down with a heavy sigh. He acquiesces with quite obvious reluctance as he breathes in deeply as if preparing himself.

"I don't know where to start," she admits, fiddling with her fingers as she now refuses to look at him. There will be tremendous baring of soul to follow, that she knows, and she's not sure how much of holding herself together she'd manage if she had to look at the same blue eyes she's been in love with her whole life.

She already isn't entirely very anxious to have this conversation to begin with.

"Start from the beginning," Robin almost barks at her, and she can feel the way he's trying to rein in his temper, probably because it's her—and he's never lost his temper with her, about her, sure, but not with her. His patience is very little today, but she can see him making the effort. "You told me our son is dead, but that boy inside your house, he's not dead Regina. He's very fucking much alive." There is silence as Regina tries to control her tears and Robin breathes in and out. "And I'm pretty sure that boy isn't just some random boy who happens to have our son's name and look like us, and you just picked him up from the streets out of pity and had him call you mum!"

He ends his sentence with an eye roll. One that Regina fights the urge to mirror—because, well, of course not. She feels herself tremble instead as she lets out the words for the first time since finding out about Henry:

"No Robin, of course that is not the case," she says in a whisper, adding: "No, Henry  _is_  our son."

**…**

"Henry is our son," Robin hears Regina say before the blood roars from his ears and his heart starts to pound like crazy.

He is not sure entirely what he feels at the moment—he's happy, of course, he's fucking happy, but there are too many emotions swirling inside him. Somehow, curiosity gets the best of him.

"I thought you said he was dead?" he asks again because this makes very little sense to him. "hy did you lie to me."

Anger actually comes in third place, but right now it's in the forefront. White hot rage curses through him.

"I didn't lie to you," she hurries to explain to him, and he cannot help but be doubtful of that one. "Mother did tell me that Henry was dead! And for eleven years I believed it. I told you what I was told, but apparently you and I have been lied to." She looks like she's on the verge of tears and there is nothing he wants more now than to pull her in his arms and hug her…but he knows he can't. He does realize and understand the gravity of the situation, and now is not the time for selfish urges. "Henry came to me. He knocked on my door and told me I was his mother, that I  _am_  his mother. And of course I didn't believe that at first, because I had been told all along that he was dead, that my son is dead, but he produced some proof—some certificate he'd gotten off the internet about his birth indicating clearly who his mother is—which already seems sketchy as it is so I couldn't quite believe it, convinced as I was that our Henry cannot possibly be alive. But it did have me thinking."

She proceeds to tell him about her confrontation with her mother, how Cora had as good as told her that what Henry said was true, but going as far as discrediting the boy and saying that it doesn't matter whether or not their son is alive, Henry had been lying. Only it turned out that he hadn't, and that Regina had a lawyer friend from college who had the proceedings underway, had DNA tests done for mother and son, and had made it possible for Henry to stay with Regina while they waited for the tests to verify what they already know as the truth. Turns out, she had been right—Henry is his and Regina's son and she's adopting him now.

She pauses for a while and silence pregnant with tension settles over them. Robin feels anger run through him for Cora. He's always know that Regina's mother was a manipulative, cold-hearted bitch who pressured her daughter for more even when Regina had been burnt out from giving her all that she's asked. Robin has always hated the way Cora treated Regina and had tried to get along with her for Regina's sake and the sake of their parents' friendship, but he'd long since wanted to give Regina his name if only to take her out of that extremely unhealthy and emotionally crippling house. Robin had often looked up at Henry Sr. for being able to provide Regina with the warmth and affection Cora cannot seemingly bestow her daughter, but often cursed the older man in his head for being unable to protect Regina from Cora's innate nastiness.

Sure, he knows Cora loves her daughters (yes, Zelena included) and wants to give them everything she hadn't had when she had been young, but she does it in a very roundabout way that only manages to hurt her children.

He knows Regina won't have been like her mother…had she had the chance to love Henry from the moment he was born, but Cora took that away from him, and he's so, so, so fucking angry about that. But what good would it do now?

Besides, they finally have Henry back and it would give them both the chance to love Henry the way he's supposed to be loved.

"Mother said she was doing it for my own good, acting on her need to do what's best for me. She'd sent her own grandson to an orphanage because she wanted me to be without baggage," she adds after a while, and it makes Robin's anger go on high level again so soon after he's leveled with himself, and suddenly trashing Cora Mills sounds like such a good fucking idea.

"How did Henry find out?" he asks in wonder, trying to sidetrack himself from wanting to go over the Mills' house to throttle the older Mills woman.

Regina smiled ruefully. "He got into this site that told you who your parents are or your heritage, or something like that," she answers, then chuckles a little, shaking her head. "Funny thing about is it that he's actually stolen the credit card of one of the social workers there and made his way from Boston to here, Storybrooke." She gives him a grin, and Robin cannot help but chuckle, relieving some of the tension and bringing back some levity into the situation.

"What a sneaky little thief," he muses, remembering all the times Regina had called himself that, whenever he would steal sweet apples from her tree or even sweeter kisses from her lips. It seems like it's in the genes, since Roland is proving to be just as sneaky…

"Of course you'd be amused," she mutters, snorting and rolling her eyes. "He's his father's son."

**…**

The words are out of her mouth before her brain even registers them, and she could just about smack herself.

What an idiot.

Of course there is nothing wrong with what she'd said, it is the truth after all. But she can't help but wonder if it's the right thing to say at this moment—her heart certainly can't take it.

She looks up at him, the feelings hitting her like a trainwreck. She bites the inside of her cheeks and tries not to let the tears flow at the look in Robin's eyes. He looks like he's just handed her the whole world, as though he is only now realizing that all of this is real—Henry  _is_  their son and he's here, alive, and here to stay.

She wants to kiss him, wants to revel in this moment she's dreamt of with his lips pressed against hers, kissing her in the passionate way he has always used to…but that one's a pipe dream.

She's so lost in her daydream that it startles her out of her mind when Robin says: "I want to meet him, Regina. I want to meet our son," with so much conviction that she's not sure if it's made her suddenly alive or dead with dread.


	8. Chapter 8

**_Eight_ **

They have always wanted a big family, had planned and dreamt of having many children to fill their house with childish laughter and rambunctious play. Having grown up in relatively small families, with Regina having only one older sister with whom she had a precarious and volatile relationship with (because Zelena had been sent to a boarding school in London when she’d been younger while Regina had remained and studied in the US), and Robin having had one older sibling who’d died before Robin had even been born, they’d both wanted to have a lot of kids so that their children wouldn’t experience the loneliness that comes along with being an only child. Granted, they’d had each other when they were kids, but it was different, and so they’d wanted a lot of kids, three minimum, a house full of children, if at all possible.

Only, life had other ideas and they never really got around to getting that and what had been a plan for a big family ended up being a dream of one, something they’d had to leave in the past but had carried on to the present as if holding on to it did not amount to pain, suffering and grief—another part of the never-ending what-ifs that they have that had them stuck in the past that seems to have no more recourse.

But they  _do_  have one kid now, one son that they’d found again, or had found them (her, technically, but that is just a simple detail), and said kid is now bouncing in his seat in the passenger side of Regina’s Mercedes as she drives down to the forest where the kid’s father resides.

Henry could barely contain his excitement, though Regina had not really told him that they are about to meet with his father, only that they are visiting an old friend of Regina’s who’s very excited to meet him as well. At first, her son had been apprehensive, not really inclined to trust strangers because of all his experience with them, but when Regina had asked him if he remembers the man who had visited her in their house, and told him that her  _friend_  lives in the forest, near the lake and maybe they could persuade him to take them on a lazy sail across the Lake Nostros, Henry’s excitement had been obviously filled to the brim and just shy of bursting. Never mind the fact that it’s cold, getting closer and closer to winter, and it’s probably not the best idea to pitch to her overactive son—because he  _will_  want to, and she’s not really keen on disappointing him right now, and she knows neither is Robin—but the excitement that lights up his eyes is too precious, and is just about everything she needs to be convinced that even if Robin says no,  _she_ would insist, unless Robin says it’s unsafe.

As of the moment, however, insisting anything is the farthest thing from her mind, because all she could think about is running for the hills and just disregarding this day altogether. It’s not as though she doesn’t want her son to meet his father. She does. She really does, it would do Henry a whole lot of good to know his father and have him guide him through life, but she fears that they aren’t ready for it…that  _she_  is not. 

It has taken her weeks to even agree to this, and those weeks after the day Robin had confronted her about their son had been spent debating whether or not she should let Henry meet Robin and let him know that he’s his father. Again, it has nothing to do with not wanting Robin to be in their son’s life, but maybe more to the fact that she  _does_  want him in their son’s life, badly, incredibly so that it frightens her. 

_“He’s merely adjusting to his life here, Robin,”_  she’d told him, trying to find an excuse to postpone the inevitable. Robin did have an active participation (she remembers far too vividly, and she aches) in Henry’s procreation, she knows that, and she really doesn’t have much justification why she doesn’t want to let him meet their son yet, except, “ _He’s not ready yet.”_

_Or she’s not…but Robin doesn’t need to know that, and she’s not willing to acknowledge that because it would open another can of worms she’s not ready to sort out._

_“What’s to be ready or not ready about it?”_  he asks, and he makes a fair point, but she’s not about to tell him that either, “ _We’re his parents.”_ And how good does that sound? “ _I’m his father, Regina. I have the right to know my son, and my son has a right to know me.”_

_“And I’m not taking that away from you,”_ she’s answered him then, because that’s the truth…she just needs a bit more preparation. She’d had enough surprise revelations in one day. “ _All I’m saying is that he is barely adjusting to having a mother, a person who cares for him and loves him unconditionally, meeting you might be another adjustment that I’m just not willing to put him through.”_

_Or put **herself**  through._

_“Is it him you’re worried about?”_ Robin asks, ever so perceptive. That’s probably where their son got it from. “ _Or yourself? Because you and I both know that Henry knowing that I’m his father would change a lot of things, it would tip over that balance you have so carefully crafted, and maybe you aren’t ready to let him know me as his father yet since you know for sure things are about to change when you do.”_

He’s right, of course, and there hadn’t been anything she could say on the contrary, so she sighs and shakes her head, swallows the fears she has that she’d told herself over and over to get over because they are childish and it just makes her a coward, though she can’t  _just_  get over them, just like that, because they are real fears—not totally unfounded or unjustified. 

“ _Just…just give me a few days Robin, please?”_  she almost begs him, and she’d looked at him wide eyes, letting him know without words that perhaps he thinks that they’re son does  _not_  need this, and maybe, just maybe he  _really_ does not, but  _she_  does. She needs it, and if he could just give her a few days, a few weeks, a few forevers perhaps, then maybe she could be ready.

She’s pretty sure she can never really ever be prepared for her son and his father to meet, to be all father and son, to have Robin act like the devoted father that he is to both Henry and Roland, and he might as well sucker punch her in the ovaries and the heart because that’s probably how intense it would feel.

“ _Alright a few days_ ,” he acquiesces with a soft sigh, and she reaches out to grasp his hand and give it a soft squeeze, feeling appreciative of his compromise. She’d kiss him, and she has the urge to do so, but somehow there seems to be a line drawn between them that she’s just unwilling to cross.

But a few days turned into a few weeks, and Robin had been agitated by her continuously postponing this meeting, that he’d been all but forced to drag her and their unknowing son out in here, in his house just so he could finally properly introduce himself to their son, and probably break her in the process. She’s not just overacting here, letting Robin introduce himself as the boy’s father would alter everything. And though she doesn’t want to admit it, it would bring into the light the mere fact that neither of them has managed to move on from one another, it won’t change for Robin—he’s openly admitted it, but it would change a lot of things for Regina because as it is, she’s barely acknowledging the fact and her whole life seems to be tilting on its axis.

She doesn’t have a choice though. Robin is still Henry’s father, and she has to do this, has to let them meet because it would be good for their son.

And that’s where she is now, pulling up in Robin’s driveway, heart pounding inside her chest so hard she’s wondering how it’s not burst from her silk blouse just yet. She glances to her side and finds her son beaming, eyes wide and in awe of the house in front of him. Snippets of regret and bitterness find their way to her brain, and she thinks that they could all be here, living here but Mother really just had to know better.

“Mom! Their house is huge,” Henry exclaims a little breathlessly, “And beautiful,” he adds, and it seems that he  _is_  every bit his father’s son because he is able to appreciate aesthetics just like his father had at his age.

The though squeezes at Regina’s heart like a vise grip.

“I know baby,” she says, trying to smile, though it probably comes out as a grimace because Henry jumps up to reassure her when he catches the look on her face.

“Your house is still beautiful mom!” he says, and Regina shakes her head wryly. “I love it there.”

“I know darling,” she says with a genuine smile this time as she reaches out to caress the smooth skin of his chubby cheek. “I’m just nervous, sorry.”

Henry looks at her, puzzled as to why she should be nervous, she’s supposedly friends with this person, and it’s just an innocent meeting with a possibility of a sail for Henry after all, and that’s half the truth, but what he doesn’t know is that he’s might be about to come out of that house with more than what he came in with.

Regina smiles reassuringly at her son, mutters an “ _I’m okay, baby’,_  before she looks up front again and finds Robin standing on the porch, Roland by his side, both Locksley boys displaying their dimples and waving at them.

Regina schools her expression into a cooler one, sucking in a deep breath to try and calm her racing her heart and give the impression that she’s calm and collected, even when she’s as far as she could be from either.

Slowly, Regina unbuckles her seatbelt and climbs out of the car, closing the door with a slight thud and waiting for her son to the same before she locks it. Henry looks at her, shyness creeping into his features now, and she reaches out a hand to him, letting him hold on to her, to maybe borrow some of his braveness and coolness, or share some of hers even when she’s already running low on supply of that.

“Ready?” she asks her son, and Henry nods, giving her a soft smile.

Somehow, Regina believes she’ll make it through and everything will be alright.

**…**

Robin has never been more excited in his life, with the exception of Roland’s birth and the time Regina had agreed to be his girlfriend, he doesn’t think he’s ever been  _this_  excited. He is about to meet his son properly, to be able to introduce himself as his father and Roland as his brother, and his heart is filled to the brim, ready to burst from the excitement and anticipation of it all.

It had been difficult to persuade Regina, she’d seemed so reluctant about it all—and he knows her enough to know that she’s calculating the whiplash of him introducing himself to their son (the effect it would have on their son and to her, what other people might think, what  _Cora—of all people—_ would think. Of course he understands, but he rather wishes she’d stop thinking about what everyone else thinks, and start thinking about what he thinks and what  _she_  wants, wishes she would stop thinking about others, and start thinking about  _her._

But that’s neither here nor there to what will be happening that day. He had woken up early that day and had tried rousing his little boy from bed. Luckily, Roland is somewhat a morning person, being a young child full of energy who also has a very early bed time, and waking him is never a hard task. Regina and Henry are supposed to get there a little after twelve, so Robin had bundled his younger son and had gotten out to the nearest grocer’s to buy food for them. He knows they could just order take out but he really does want to cook for his son and his…well, son’s mother, maybe impress him with the very little he can actually cook properly and not burn. He bought a tub of ice cream for dessert, never mind that it’s cold and Regina might not approve—it’s his and Roland’s favorite, and if Henry is anything like them, it would be  _his_  favorite too. And it isn’t like Regina is immune to the sweet treat, no matter how much she might deny otherwise. If she’s not changed as much as he fears to be his biggest nightmare, then she’d still love a bite of ice cream as she’s always had when they were younger.

It had been just a little after eleven when he and Roland got in, and Robin had sent Roland to play for a bit while he prepared their lunch. It’s nothing heavy, he still wants to be able to take them out to dinner later, maybe back at John’s so Henry could meet the people that Robin are friends with…but would that overwhelm him? Or Regina? He doesn’t know…all he knows is that he wants to be able to spend as much time as he can with them. He has already spent way too many years being away from them, from what is supposed to be his family. He loves Roland with every fiber of his being and then some more, loves him for him and won’t ever change a hair or a bone in his body, but there are days when he can’t help but think of how much better it would have been if Regina had been Roland’s mum and not Marian. Of course, he can’t say he regrets ever being with Marian, if only for the sole reason that she had given him his son, Roland, but sometimes, most times, he can’t help but think of the life he should have had with Regina and wish that he has it.

But he hasn’t, not now, and maybe not ever, though his heart never ceases to hope and maybe this one day that he’s going to spend with Regina and Henry and Roland is one step, no matter how little, towards the right direction. Maybe they could build something, a kind of family that’s theirs and unique, though he dares not hope, knowing how Regina’s mind usually works.

Or how life usually works…or has worked for him anyway.

He’d shaken his head at his thoughts and tried focusing on the food he’s making. It’s just a simple meal of make-your-own pizza but he hopes that it’s good enough for them. It’s safe, after all, something he really  _won’t_ burn, and it’s filling, and well, it’s not much hassle since he’s sure Roland would eat it as well. He thought to just have one big pizza _he_ would make, but that really won’t be much in the way of bonding, so he opted to buy four pieces of pizza dough that they could top with every topping he could think of. Funny how he’d had to run to the grocery just to buy what he needs for it, but he’d also gone out to buy some snacks that are unhealthy and totally not wholesome by Regina’s standards—who’s been a health freak for as long as he can remember, and she would cut his throat when she arrives and finds that he’d gone and spoiled the kids with every unhealthy food known to man, but he can’t help it. He really wants to spoil them, Henry most especially (and it’s not because he’s picking favourites, he loves both his sons equally) because he’s never had the chance to do it before like he’d had with Roland.

So maybe Regina would be doing a lot of clenching her jaw and her fists at the exorbitant amount of sweets and junk he’d bought for the boys, but it is only for a day (in her presence anyway), and she’ll just have to get over it.

**..**

It doesn’t take long for the time to pass, and soon enough it is already half past twelve, and Regina has sent him a message that she and Henry are on their way. He tells Roland this, and watches as his youngest boy bounces on his heels from excitement, the pure glee in his eyes shining at the idea of seeing not only Regina this time, but another boy, a young boy with whom he can play with and talk superheroes with, and it’s just too much for the four-year-old who looks at his father with wide eyes as they stand on the front porch together, hand in hand, waiting for the two other members of the family Robin wishes they have right now.

“Daddy,” Roland says with a bit of a whine in his voice and excitement bubbles up in him, threatening to drown him. It’s contagious, and Robin finds himself grinning, just as excited to see his son and Regina. “How much longer?”

Robin chuckles at his son’s impatience and shakes his head. “Not much longer my boy,” Robin reassures him, and true enough, it doesn’t take more than five minutes before Regina’s sleek black Mercedes is rolling into his driveway and then it’s halting, just a few steps away from the door, but still out of the way as though she needs to give a wide berth for anything to pass through—she doesn’t, Robin’s parkway is just a vast majority of land filled with trees. He’d always envisioned their children running around there, had they had the chance to expand their family…but that’s not the case, and the case is he has two sons who can fully utilize all the space in his land, and that’s good enough.

“It’s them, it’s them, Daddy,” Roland chants from beside him, breaking his thoughts, and he looks down at his son with a smile before looking at the general direction of the car, trying to see past the heavy tinted glasses—he’s not very successful in that, but still he waves at them, knowing at least  _they_  can see him, and Roland does the same—does it with so much enthusiasm, half of him is afraid his son’s arm would fall from its socket.

A few moments later and Regina and Henry are climbing out the Mercedes and makes their way to him and Roland. For some reason, his heart is pounding, though his smile is wide. He’s probably as nervous as his son is apprehensive, or as Roland is excited. Regina looks like she’d rather go for the gallows than be here, her head going at every direction as if afraid of being caught standing in his property—and by whom? The neighbors (he hasn’t got any)? Cora (probably, because Cora has spies everywhere)?

“Hello,” he greets them, as soon as they are a respectable distance from him and Roland. Regina halts just below the steps, Henry following suit, and Roland bouncing on his feet as he runs down to throw his arms around Regina’s leg.

“Hi, hi, hi, Regina!” Roland greets, far less nervous and apprehensive than he is at greeting the beautiful brunette in front of him, though all Robin wants to do is just throw his arms around her too.

Regina’s expression softens and her lips break out into a smile as she crouches down to Roland’s level and gives him a soft kiss on his cute, chubby little cheeks—his dimples are prominently on display and Regina lands his kiss there, making his son blush a little and giggle. Robin wishes Regina would the same to him, but well, that’s a pipe dream.

“Hello, Roland,” she greets pleasantly, gathering his little boy into his arms to embrace him. 

Once again, Robin is hit with the simple fact that Regina has a touch of a mother, always has, always will.

“Hello, Regina,” Roland greets pleasantly. “I’m so glad you came to play!”

Not just that, of course, but Regina nods, anyway. Robin sneaks a glance at his older son, ( _his_  son, he thinks wistfully), and watches as Henry’s brows furrow and his lips purse while he stares at his mother and Roland who have now started speaking about his Lego and all the things they could build with it. Robin doesn’t want to classify the expression, but he knows what it is.

He clears his throat and directs their attention to him. “Hey,” he greets, and Regina looks up at him, and there’s something in her eyes, something that makes him unable to look away, and he’s silent, at a sudden loss for words because she’s just so stunning—in every way—and so breathtaking and all of a sudden, he just doesn’t know what to do with himself.

“Hey,” she greets, voice soft and low, and he’s not sure if she’s shy or she really,  _really, really_  just does not want to be here, and maybe it’s both.

He tries not to think of that as he feels the air get charged with tension, so he shifts his gaze to their boy who has now glued himself to his mother’s side, half of him hiding behind her as though he wants her to shield him from the world.

Regina follows his gaze, he sees from his peripherals the way her head tilts and then she’s wrapping one arm around their son, the other still clasped by Roland’s chubby little fingers.

“Right,” she mutters softly, but loud enough for him to hear. “Henry, this is my friend Robin, and his son Roland. Robin, this is my son Henry.”

Henry looks at him in wonder, and Robin makes a move towards them, hands outstretched, ready to shake the boy’s. He’d admit to being disappointed that Regina’s introduced him only as her friend, but he understands. It doesn’t really make a lot of sense for her to just blurt out right then and there that he’s Henry’s father…it doesn’t seem right. Maybe later, definitely today, but not right now.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, son,” he says, unable to help himself from calling him that. Regina’s sharp intake of breath is audible and she looks at him as though she wants to rip his heart out or slip a sleeping curse into him, but she manages to hold herself back, only glares at him to back off, and purses her lips.

He only shrugs unapologetically.

“And this is Roland.” Regina lifts the hand that’s joined with Roland’s and Roland waves at Henry and smiles, saying that his name is Roland and saying he’s this many as he holds up four fingers, and Henry gives him an uneasy smile. “Say hi, Henry,” Regina instructs, nudging her son a little bit who seems to be a little bit dazed.

“Hi Roland,” Henry obeys dutifully, looking at Roland before he moves his attention to Robin and takes Robin’s proffered hand in his young hands and shakes it. “Hi Robin.” He smiles at the boy who smiles back at him.

“At your service,” he teases, and Regina tenses, no doubt remembering the many, many times he’s used to say that to her, too, but back then she used to smile when he said it…now, well not so much.

“Well, we she all get in,” Robin says when silence surrounds them. “It’s a bit nippy out here.” As if to prove his point, Regina rubs her hands onto their son’s shoulder before she lets him go so he could walk in front of her. Robin leads them inside straight to the kitchen where he’s all laid out the food. “I hope you’re hungry,” he tells them, nodding at the DIY pizza set up shop he’s made on the counter. 

He’s put enough toppings in there to choose from, adding a lot of veggies because he knows it’s what Regina would want, and of course, she’s going to make the meal as healthy as she can for the boy’s, too.

Regina purses her lips, and Robin knows exactly why. That much carbs is making her queasy. Some things really don’t change.

“There’s a kale salad waiting for you in the fridge if you don’t want to eat veggie pizza,” he tells her then with a soft smile. “I just hope you don’t mind that they’re from granny’s.”

She smiles back at him, and it’s small and soft, but genuine and it makes his heart flutter. “Thank you,” she says, nodding. “You didn’t have to bother.”

“It’s not a bother,” he promises. “I know Kale is your favorite.” He’s not about to tell her that he knows that she  _still_  likes Kale salad because he’s seen her order it a dozen of times in Granny’s in the years that they’ve tried ignoring each other’s presence.

She looks at him, and there’s something behind that look that he cannot decipher, and not really sure she wants to at this point. “Thank you,” she murmurs, before she’s urging the two boys to go ahead and make their lunch.

**…**

 

This is how their life should have been.

Regina cannot help but think that she watches her son use the back of his spoon to spread the tomato sauce he’s generously topped his pizza with. On the other side of her, she looks over to find Robin helping Roland add pepperoni on top of his pizza, trying to make a large happy face. There were other meats on the side too, to make up for the other parts of the pizza face they are making.

“You should put some veggies in, Robin,” she instructs, not totally comfortable at the no nutritional value junk he’s about to let his son have. Pizza is okay, but there should still at least be some greens in there.

Robin looks up at her, and for a moment, she feels as though she’s overstepped her bounds, so she looks down at her own small pizza and adds some more olives just to keep herself busy. 

“Ew!” Roland exclaims, before Robin could react, and Regina looks at the boy in time to see him pull a face at her suggestion. “No veggies!”

Regina is mildly surprised when Robin says, “But Regina is right, we should put some veggies in.” So he doesn’t disagree, and she might not have overstepped, after all. “Look at Regina’s it has a lot of veggies, and that’s what makes her great, isn’t it?”

If it’s possible to die of a racing heart and a tingling feeling in her chest, she might just. She tries to shake off the feeling.

“Regina is great,” Roland agrees easily, and Regina feels her heart flutter as she grins at the boys. “But veggies are yucky!”

“You have to put some in, lad,” Robin insists, already adding some pepper and mushroom, knowing Roland would eat those—but not the olives, he’s like Robin that way. 

Roland pouts at him and crosses his arms until Henry starts adding mushroom and pepper in his and then he’s inquisitive and wide-eyed.“Do you like veggies, Henry?”  Roland asks.

Henry shrugs. “I have to eat them,” he says, “Mom will make me.”

Robin chuckles at that, because they both know it’s true, Regina would make their son eat his veggies regardless of whether he likes it or not. It’s funny how in the short amount of time they’ve been living together, Henry already knows that, Regina thinks.

“And you have to eat them, too,” Regina insists to the still pouting Roland, “so you could grow big and strong like Daddy and Henry, okay?”

Sullenly, Roland nods his head, knowing it’s a losing fight if there ever is one, and he lets Robin lay some more mushroom and pepper in before they top their pizza with a gracious amount of shredded cheese.

Regina diverts her attention to her son then, and helps him top his pizza with what he likes, urging him to put as much as he likes, whatever he likes, and no, Robin won’t mind. Henry, though apprehensive, goes along with what she says. It breaks her heart every time her son is uneasy or worried about taking anything though it is offered to him. She understands completely why, but it still breaks her heart because he should have never grown up this way—scared and weary, terrified that everything given to him is given at a price. He’s young, he shouldn’t have to worry about that, and once again, Regina finds herself hating her mother for what she’d put her son through.

“Mom,” Henry says, a little loudly to get her wandering attention. She looks at him and tries to banish the hate she feels, and it’s not hard, it’s not hard at all when she gazes into his eyes and she remembers that this is her son and she has him now and she can give him everything he’s missed in his young life. “I’m done.”

Regina nods and is about to instruct him to wait and let her bring it to the already preheated over, lest he gets burnt or something, but Robin beats her to it, speaking to their son before she can open her mouth to respond.

“Let’s go put it in the oven then and wait for it to cook,” Robin suggests, bringing his and Roland’s pies, urging Henry to do the same to his, and Regina too, as he leads the way to the other side of the kitchen where the oven is.

His oven is big, big enough to fit 4 pies—though two of them are on the smaller side (Roland wouldn’t be able to finish one whole for himself so Robin had opted to buy him the kiddie sized instead, and neither will Regina since she already has her kale salad, though the smaller pie is actually meant for Henry)—and Robin slides all the pies in, moving them around to make sur everything fits, before he closes it with a thud and sets the timer on.

He turns to them and smiles. “While we’re waiting for that to cook, I thought we could just hang out in the living room and play some games,” he says, and Regina watches the way he watches their son, as if waiting for aa reaction—but Henry is shy around strangers and he doesn’t outwardly show his excitement as though afraid someone would take it away from him if they even see him happy, but Regina knows he is quite pleased at the thought of them playing some games.

Regina’s heart flutters pleasantly at the idea, too, feels like this is some sort of dream she’s currently living, and can actually make herself believe that this is her family—if she just tries really hard to ignore the sound of her mother’s voice and the nagging and buzzing whispers of the townspeople. Her heart breaks, too, inside her chest because she knows, it’s nothing but a sweet dream, and no, aside from Henry—this isn’t really her family.

It’s a family, alright, just not _hers_.

“Okay so what game shall we play?” Robin asks, breaking her from her reverie as they make their way to his spacious living room and there is something (everything) about this house that just makes her heart clench so painfully inside her chest, and maybe it’s the fact that she could have lived here, this could be hers, theirs, but life got in the way and it just didn’t happen that way.

Roland shrugs and so Robin looks at Henry for ideas. Henry pulls a serious face, before shrugging.

“How about monopoly?” Henry asks, nervously, and Regina hates this, hates that her son should feel like this, and she can see it in Robin’s eyes that he does too.

“If that’s what you like, then that’s what we’ll play,” Robin tells him with a broad smile that shows off his dimples, his own way of reassuring their little boy. “But maybe we should do it in pairs, since Roland is too young to play on his own.” Roland looks like he’s ready to protest, but Robin speaks before he can, “I’ll pair with you, Henry if you like.”

And just like that Roland’s protest dies in his lips at the prospect of teaming up with Regina.

Regina glances at her son and sees a look that crosses his face but it’s gone as quickly as it’d come, and Henry is shrugging, smiling at Robin as Robin promises that they’ll beat Regina and Roland, they are by far the better team. Regina shakes her head with a smile at the indignant way that Roland tells his father that no, they won’t win, because Regina is just the _bestest_.

Regina grins at the boy and picks him up, kissing his cheek and telling him that he’s so good for her ego, and he shouldn’t worry because they will surely win.

And win they did, though only marginally, but it’s a victory still, and it’s a victory well times because they won just as the oven dinged, signaling that their food is ready.

**…**

 

This is the life—the life that he’s wanted, the life that he should, they should, have had—he thinks as they all get up from their little set up on the floor of his living room to pile into the kitchen where their food is ready. Regina is all smiles as she lifts Roland in her arms and wraps her arms around Henry’s shoulder. She makes a joke about the monster in her stomach being so hungry and wanting nothing more than to eat all the pizza.

Roland laughs as his own stomach growls and exclaims that he, too, has a stomach monster. Robin is a step behind just watching them and enjoying this moment because he’s not entirely sure when he’s going to have them all together again.

Robin watches as Regina places Roland back down on the floor and urges both boys back a bit as she pulls the pizza out of the over, she tells them about not getting too close in case they get burnt by accident, and that no, that won’t do. Both boys’ eyes are wide and sparkling, excitement clear in their identical brown eyes as Regina places their pizza on the counter. Robin moves then and helps her, because his own pie is too big for her to carry (not really, but chivalry isn’t dead after all). She tells the boys to go to the table and take a seat and she’ll serve them up, and the two boys run over to the dining area and she can hear laughter as they try to compete and find out who gets there first.

“It’s too much pizza, Robin,” she complains as she plates two slices each for each boy. Henry will be able to finish it and maybe ask for a half slice after, but she knows Roland won’t so she only places one slice on Robin’s plate, smirking when he raises an eyebrow at her.

“Roland won’t eat it all. He’s your son, finish his food,” she teases, and Robin rolls his eyes though he is secretly pleased that she’s joking around with him, and it’s small, nothing but a tiny little baby step but it’s a step nonetheless and for that he’s grateful.

“Please,” Robin scoffs playfully. “You and I both know I can eat my whole pie and still have room for Roland’s.” It’s the truth and he chuckles as he remembers something from their childhood, making Regina look at him curiously. “Remember that time when I made a bet with Anton that I could eat more hotdogs than him?”

Regina rolls her eyes, “And proceeded to make a fool out of yourself by puking your guts out because you ate too much, and annoying Zelena when you puked on her favorite silver shoes, sure, yeah Robin how can I ever forget?” she asks him rhetorically as she shakes her head.

True, Robin had made a fool out of herself in there. They’d been sixteen then, young and mischievous. Robin had been stupid enough to bet Anton—the bear of a boy that he is—that he could eat more hotdogs than him, and despite his girlfriend’s protests, he’d proceeded to try and make good on that bet as he gobbled up a total of 28 hotdogs, which had been good, but not better than Anton’s 37. To make matters worse, he’d complained about stomach pains after and then puked his guts out a few minutes later as they walked out of Granny’s. Regina had scolded him, telling him that she knows he’s a growing boy and could eat more than she weighs, but Anton is a bear and would eat his own weight, plus Robin and Regina’s. He’d have laughed then, because he did find it hilarious, but he’d been puking then as she dragged him to her house to have Mama Odie fix his bullheaded self up before she let him go home next door. He had not even made it to the powder room before he’s puking on her porch, right into Zelena’s favorite silver shoes that Cora had gifted her on her birthday two months prior.

Zelena had shrieked at him in anger, but Regina had managed to shut her up saying that if she didn’t shut up she’d tell on their mother that she’d caught Zelena doing more than just studying with her “study partner” (he thinks it was Hayden Veles at the time), if she didn’t stop complaining about her damned stupid shoe. That shut Zelena up pretty quick, and Robin heard no more about the shoes or Zelena’s shrieking after that), but maybe he’d just been too focused at trying to keep the hotdogs inside his stomach, because seeing it back up is certainly not a good sight.

It surprises Robin now that Regina still remembers, but then it’s very hard to forget when her boyfriend seems to be throwing up his whole stomach.

Nostalgia seeps through the silence and it’s not uncomfortable, not really, not until Regina makes it so by clearing her throat and excusing herself so she could give the boys their food, awkwardly and hastily making her exit as if the memories are giving her a heartburn.

Robin wonders if his sons would get into as much mischief as he had. And that probably will be the case considering how Henry and Roland are both as sneaky as he had been when he’d been their age.

And then he wonders if Regina will ever stop avoiding, or if life would stop being so awkward all the time.

Maybe, he thinks, but not for a long, long time yet.

**…**

 

Regina watches as the boys polished off their pizza in no time. To her absolute surprise, Roland had managed to finish the second slice she’d put in his plate and even asked for another, denting it to a half before Robin had to scoop in and finish the rest. Robin ate his own large sized pizza and ate Roland’s left over, and Henry managed to clear off his own, leaving Regina to be about the only one who hadn’t managed to eat the rest of her pie, but to her defense, she did have her salad and she’d eaten all of it.

The boys leaned back in their chairs, collectively rubbing at their full tummies, making her smile and shake her head. If anyone would ever doubt the paternity of the kids, they only have to take one look and ixnay all the doubts. Both boys are more alike with their father than Regina could even begin to explain.

“Alright time to clean up,” Regina says, pushing her chair back as the other three did too with a groan. Henry collected his plates and stood to pile the others too, hefting as much as he can carry in his little hands, Roland on the other hand had been tasked with bringing the glasses ( _2 at a time, and carefully please_ , Robin asks) to the sink. Robin made short work of taking the leftover crusts to the bin (Roland doesn’t eat crust and neither does Regina, Henry and Robin eat just about everything) while Regina grabs a cloth and wipes the table down. Henry makes a second trip to collect the rest of the plates, but Robin beats him to it, gathering what was left on the table and bringing it over to the sink where he washes it before loading up the dishwasher.

The soft and steady hum fills the silence, only because it’s too silent with everyone, including Roland, just standing there in the kitchen, waiting for something or anything.

Robin shifts in his feet and clears his throat. “How about some ice cream lads?” he asks, and Regina shakes her head in disapproval. As much as she’d hate to take out the light in both boys’ eyes at the mention of ice cream, she doesn’t want them to have stomach aches either—that won’t do.

“How about we let the food in our stomach settle down first, and then we can revisit that thought in a while?” she asks, ruffling Roland’s head when he pouts at her. She knows he’s a fan of ice cream, knows her own son is too, but she needs to put some brakes on, otherwise, these boys would just be shoveling food in their mouths nonstop if they had the chance. She smiles, “Maybe we can have it later after we sail in your father’s boat across the Lake Nostros, if that’s okay with your Daddy.”

Regina watches Henry’s eyes light up and she smiles at him, winking, knowing how excited he is at the chance. He surprises her when he looks at Robin and clasps his hands together, eyes wide and pleading.

“Please, Robin?” he begs, as though he needs to. Regina knows that Robin would have no problem giving him whatever he wants if he just asks. “Please, please?”

Robin shakes his head and chuckles, “Of course, my boy,” he says, smiling wider when Henry lets out an overly enthusiastic _yay_ and thanks him profusely. “Perhaps we should set up now so we could go. The winds will be freezing at this time of the year so bundle up well, but don’t worry, the waters will be calm.”

“Can I help set up?” Henry asks, before biting his lip, looking like he’s about to take back that request, forever afraid of speaking out of turn, but Robin assures him that it’d be his pleasure, he’d be happy to let him. Regina smiles, heart full at the prospect of father and son bonding together even if Henry doesn’t know Robin is his father _yet_.

“Well now that’s settled, Roland and I will be hunting for warm clothes for him and then we’ll meet you at the docks when we’re done. Maybe we’ll pack some food and drinks and blankets too, just in case we need it,” she suggests then, extending her hand to the little boy who grins at her and bobs his head up and down with so much excitement and enthusiasm, she’s afraid he’d make himself dizzy or worse, his head falls off.

“Alright then, come on Henry,” Robin urges as he throws an arm around his son’s shoulder. “We’ll do the big boys’ job and set sail, and then your mum and your—Roland, your mom and Roland will meet us there, hmm?”

His slip up is blatant and it is only Roland who isn’t staring at him with an odd expression, but Henry shrugs and lets him lead the way to the docks where he keeps his boat. Regina on the other hand lets Roland lead her to his bedroom where they tried to fish out his warmest jacket, a scarf, and  an adorable green beanie—the same one he’d been wearing the first time they’d met.

“I like it when you’re here, Regina,” he tells her as she helps him into his quilted jacket. She smiles at him and smoothes her palm down his lapels before fetching his scarf and wrapping it around his neck gently as she waited for him to continue. “It’s so much better, and Daddy smiles more.”

The last part catches her attention but she doesn’t want to think too much about it. It isn’t like she has the right to more than what she already does, or feel anything about it really.

“Do you think so?” she asks him, stalling, not really knowing what to say to that.

He hums in the affirmative but lets the subject matter drop, and Regina dares not to bring it up because well…she doesn’t want to have to dissect her feelings in front of the little boy…or ever, at all.

“Well, maybe I’ll be hanging around more,” she tells him, though she’s not sure entirely of it because she’s not really exactly sure she wants to put herself through more of this anymore—this kind of pain and longing, she’s not this kind of masochist. “Me and Henry.”

The dimpled boy grins at her with happiness and appreciation, no doubt liking the thought of spending more time with her and Henry.

They head down to fix some sandwiches then, and Regina hunts through the kitchen for a wicker basket or a cooler of some kind. She unearths a cooler from under the sink and she fills it with drinks, both hot and cold—opting to make two thermoses full of hot chocolate and making sure to pack the whip cream she’d found inside Robin’s fridge along with some cinnamon and cups for all of them. Once she’s done with that, she takes Roland’s hand and leads him out, making sure to close the door behind her. They meet Robin and Henry by the docks, and Regina is pleased to see that Robin had made sure that their son is all bundled up as she nears them. Robin too is equally bundled up, and suddenly Regina feels like her wool coat, despite its heaviness and thickness will be nothing to the cold that Robin and the boys seem to be prepared for. She wishes she’d worn that scarf she’d been debating all morning about wearing but had ended up going without today.

“Are you guys ready?” Robin asks as he takes the cooler from Regina and putting it inside the boat. His boat is a large sailboat, a large yawl to be honest, and it’s enough to fit all four of them and have a lot of space to move around—not that Regina could foresee herself actually moving around a lot. Her and the water don’t really agree very well.

The boys nod excitedly and Regina smiles at them, watching as Robin helps them in and then he’s reaching for her, taking her hand as he lets her step into the wobbly contraption, and she wonders why she’d even suggested it.

Their trip is calming, despite the occasional gasps of excitement coming from two young boys. Sometimes, Robin would point out particular parts of the lake and add some anecdotes, or point to where that part might lead to places ( _that small way there, that’s a shortcut from there to the town line,_ he’d say and if Regina isn’t feeling as tranquil, she’d tell him to stop filling their heads with ideas—like sneaking out and using his shortcuts) and some other stories. It’s been a few hours, yet Robin doesn’t seem to have a limit in his supply of childhood stories to regale the boys with. All Regina could do is smile, shake her head, and enjoy it.

The sail is peaceful and calming, and she likes it—Robin is right the waters are calm. But he’s right too when he says that it will be cold, and Regina feels the nipping coldness. She wraps her arms around herself, palms rubbing against her arm through the thick wool of her coat as she tries to warm herself.

She really should have brought a scarf.

“You should have brought a scarf,” Robin scolds her as he moves next to her, making her jump. She looks at him, about to say something, when he unravels his own scarf and wraps it around her neck. It’s cozy and warms her up quickly, and ultimately and the best thing yet, it smells like him—a combination of forest and sweat and something innately Robin and that’s nice, it feels nice, though she won’t really admit that to him. “There,” he says when he finishes. “That’s a lot nicer, isn’t it?”

She nods, though she wants to protest. “How about you?” she asks him, looking at him with worry in her eyes.

“I do love it when you’re worried about me,” he teases, eliciting a small, shy smile from her. “But I’m okay. I’m used to it, you know I’m a man of the forest.”

And he is, she knows, remembers distinctly how he’s used to bring her to the forest even under freezing temperatures, bundling her up in as many coats as she could possibly wear while he’d go with one quilted leather jacket and a scarf. When she’d complained of the cold, he’d warm her up quickly with his passionate kisses as he plops her down in his lap and he sits on their stump in the middle of the clearing.

She hums, the memory making her veins thrum in a way that it hasn’t in a while. She wants to get off the boat and get as far away as she can from the feelings brewing inside her chest, but she can’t, water surrounds and traps her in here, in her ultimate what-if and what could have been.

“I think your mum packed some things for us, Henry,” he says then, addressing their son who is sat next to the cooler. “Why don’t you unearth the goodies she’d brought with us.”

Henry obeys dutifully and opens the cooler, fishing out the two thermoses of hot chocolate that she’d whipped out. He hands it to Robin who pours some into the cups before he tops it with whipped cream and sprinkling cinnamon on top. He hands one to Roland who takes it with a grin, and Regina reaches out to help him hold it. He smiles gratefully, his dimples on full display. Robin makes another cup for Henry, before he asks Regina if she wants one, and while the two boys were busy sipping their drinks and watching the lake, pointing at things and laughing, Robin asks her if she wants him to make it Irish.

She looks at him, mock appalled at him for even suggesting it. They are in the presence of their kids after all.

“Oh please,” he scoffs with a grin. “Just a little to warm us up.”

She rolls her eyes as he produces a flask she’d had no idea he’d been keeping. He’s grinning at her mischievously, very much like he’d had when they’d bene younger.

“I don’t daytime drink,” she tells him, pushing back the flask he’s so ready to tip over her cup. He shrugs and pours the tiniest bit, and she shakes her head but silently praises him for being at least responsible. Maybe, his hellion days really are over.

“It’s getting late,” Regina murmurs softly after a few more minutes as silence settles over them and the skies starts to burst in hues of indigo, orange and pink. She doesn’t really want to break the spell, doesn’t want this moment to end, but all good things do, and she can’t live in this bubble forever no matter how much she might want to.

“You’re right,” he says, nodding before calling the boys up and telling them that it’s late and they should be getting back. Henry looks disappointed, Regina can tell, but it is Roland who voices their protest with a loud groan and a pronounced pout.

“No, Daddy!” Roland cries out, looking at his father with wide eyes that are filled with unshed tear. “I don’t want to go!”

“But we need to,” Robin tell his son gently, though he looks like he really doesn’t want to have to say it. Regina really cannot say that she blames him—it’s hard to say no to the cute little hobbit. “It’s getting dark and colder and we need some dinner.”

“NO!” Roland says, stomping his feet and crossing his arms. He’s getting all worked up about it, and that’s typical for a child his age, but Regina can tell something is amiss when his eyes dart from her to Henry then back to his father.

“Roland,” Regina whispers softly before Robin could speak. For a brief moment she worries yet again that she’s overstepping, but Robin only looks at her in relief. “Come here.” Regina waits for Roland to move across the boat and to her arms. She pulls him close and places him down her lap. “Won’t you like it better if we are all warm and cozy in your house rather than here on the lake where it’s cold and about to be dark? Won’t it be safer there?”

Roland, whose fat tears are rolling down his cheeks rapidly, shakes his head. “But if we get back, you and Henry will go home!” he exclaims, throwing his arms around Regina and burying his face on her chest. “I don’t want you to go home.”

Regina looks at Robin helplessly and sighs. “Well, not yet,” Regina assures him, rubbing a hand up and down her back. “We’ll need dinner first, don’t you agree?” she asks him, smiling when he pulls away enough to look up at her.

“Really?” he asks, doubtful but also excited.

“Sure,” Regina says, and looks up in time to find Henry smiling excitedly at Robin. It melts her heart that their son obviously still wants to spend time with his father despite not knowing that he _is_ his father. “Does that make you feel better about is heading back?”

Roland nods softly before cuddling further into her, making her smile. She regrets missing the days that her son was this old, wishes again for the umpteenth time that she could bring back time and make the decision for herself—it’s not as though she’s never had the chance to, she just never really took it.

But that’s in the past, she tells herself as Robin and Henry set sail once more so they could go back to the house Robin calls home.

**…**

 

It’s already dark by the time they arrived back to his house and his son is already safe and sound asleep in Regina’s arms. Robin offers to get him from her, assuming she must be so tired by now from holding him, but Regina dismisses him and instead carries Roland inside herself, telling him to spend more time with Henry because the boy undoubtedly has a lot of questions.

Robin agrees and lets Henry help him ties the boat to the dock while answering all of the questions his son throws at him with so much patience. He loves the fact that he’s curious, likes that he wants to know more things and are interested in the things that Robin is interested in, too. He’s so much like both him and Regina, a perfect split of their personalities, and by god, Robin loves his son so much.

“Are you hungry?” Robin asks as the make their way back into the house. He wants to bring his sons and Regina back at John’s, but with Roland asleep, and if Henry is already hungry, well, take out would have to do for now.

 They have so much time to introduce his son to his extended family anyway.

Henry shakes his head. “Not yet,” he says, smiling politely at the man he doesn’t even know is the man who gave him life. “Maybe later when Roland is awake so he won’t feel left out.” It touches Robin’s heart that his son has such a big heart—very much like her mother in that regard, and Robin knows how great of a brother he would be to Roland. “But I’d like another cup of hot chocolate. Mom makes the best ones!”

Robin is inclined to agree to that, however: “Hmm, your mother might not agree to you having another cup because it might spoil your dinner,” he tells the boy who frowns but nods his head in agreement, “But we’ll try and convince her, okay?”

Henry beams at him and at that moment, Robin knows he’d go above and beyond to give his son whatever he asks, should he ask for anything.

Robin wraps his arms around his son’s shoulder, wanting nothing more than to just tell him the truth about them, knowing he’d have to wait a little while because his son is only starting to trust him.

“So how is living with your mom so far?” Robin asks the boy who looks at him with such a huge smile.

“Amazing!” he answers happily. “Mom is the best. She reads me stories before bed and tucks me in and she bought me a Harry Potter bedspread and made my room Harry Potter themed, and she also bought me so much comic books! I only used to borrow from the library in the orphanage and there weren’t that much in there. Mom says we’ll have to buy the whole set of Harry Potter books too, so we can start reading it every night before bed.”

He looks happy and excited and secured with Regina’s love, and no wonder too, because Robin knows how fiercely Regina can love someone—he’d been in the receiving end of that love once upon a long time ago, and he knows without a doubt that there will be no shortcoming on her end for her own son.

“Sounds like mum’s already covered everything huh?” Robin asks with a soft smile. He wonders what he should give his boy that would give him as much happiness, but he does know that parenting is never a competition, and Henry will be appreciative of anything he’d be given. He seems like the type of kid who’s just grateful for everything, and with the life he’s lead, it’s really no wonder.

“Yeah, she’s a pretty cool mom,” Henry says and then he gets this distant look in his eyes that makes him seem like older and wiser than his years. “I love her so much, I know that I’ve only been with her a few months, and that I would love her anyway because she’s my mom, but I really do love her. She’s the best mom. I wish I’ve never had to grow up without her. I know it’s her fault and maybe she was just thinking she was going to give me her best chance because she was young when she gave birth to me, but sometimes I wish she realized that my best chance would have been with her.”

_And me,_ Robin thinks quietly as he looks down at the boy he barely knows but loves with every fiber of his being.

“Look Henry, I’m sure your mom loves you very much, has loved you since you were in his belly,” he explains as they near the house. “Your mum—she didn’t have a choice, she didn’t know you were being taken away from her. And maybe, your dad should have helped fight back more, but both of them—your mum and Dad—they tried their best to keep you, okay? They wanted to keep you.”

Henry nods though Robin doubts he understands fully what the case is in here. But he’s young, barely eleven, and it’s such a complex situation for him to understand. He needs time.

“Well, you’ve got your mum now and I promise you, she will go through the gates of hell just to make sure you are never separated from her again,” he reassures the boy as he opens the door.

“Robin?” Henry asks as they make their way inside. So far, Regina is nowhere to be found, but the boy’s hushed whispers are enough to let him know that whatever Henry’s about to say, isn’t for Regina’s ear.

“Yes, my boy?” he asks as he looks down at his son. He leads them to the couch and takes a seat, encouraging him to take the empty seat beside him.

“Do you know who my dad is?” Henry asks and for a brief second Robin’s heart stops and his breath ceases and he could feel paralysis creeping all over his body and he’s not entirely sure what’s to come out of this. He wants to tell his son so badly but he knows Regina should be here for that, too. “Because I want to ask my mom but I’m not sure she would tell me.”

Robin exhales loudly, heart thumping inside his chest erratically. He wants to tell him, but he can’t, not yet. “I think that’s a conversation to be had with your mum, son,” he says though every part of him just screams for him to tell Henry the truth.

“Okay,” Henry says dejectedly, and Robin sighs, patting his son on his shoulder, though he understands his frustration.

Robin lets his hand rest on his son’s shoulder as they sit there quietly. Soon enough, Henry falls asleep, and Robin positions him so that he’s fully lying on the couch, before getting the flannel blanket he’s thrown on the back of the love seat and tucking his son in it.

He stands up after placing a kiss on his son’s forehead and is about to make his way to the kitchen when he meets Regina’s eyes—she’d been standing at the threshold of the dining area and the living room, just standing there with her arms crossed, watching them.He walks over to her and cocks his head to the general direction of the kitchen, urging her to follow him.

“I guess we’ll have to wait for the kids to wake before dinner,” Regina says when they stand in the middle of his kitchen, the silence enveloping them after a while of just staring at each other.

“Regina we have to tell him,” Robin implores his childhood sweetheart who’s now supposedly just a stranger—except they share a son together, and he’s there in the living room, sleeping on Robin’s couch.

“I know,” Regina says, nodding, and he knows what this is, knows that this is her way of appeasing him. “We will tell him, just wait for a while.”

“I’ve done my waiting. We agreed we’d tell him today,” he argues and knows he’s made a point by the way her face scrunches up in thought.

|”We agreed that you’ll meet today, that is all. We haven’t really agreed to telling him,” she says, and maybe she’s right.

“He’s asking about me, Regina and I’m not really keen on just standing here on the sidelines waiting for you to decide when the best time would be to tell our son when he’s ready to know. How do you even know if he _is_ ready?”

 “I’m his mother!” Regina exclaims with frustration. It’s clear who’s not ready in this scenario, and it’s not Henry. “I know what’s best for him!”

“You’ve been his mother for five seconds!” he throws in her face, and it’s a low blow, a low, low blow. But the words are out before he could let his brain register them.

Regina looks at him as if he’s slapped her in the face. He’s about to apologize but Regina holds up hand to dismiss his apologies. “He’s not ready,” is all she says.

“I’m his father, Henry’s my son, too, I get an in on this decision too,” he implores her, looking at her eyes deeply, wishing she’d recognize the desperation in them.

There is silence between them and you could basically hear a pin drop until, “You’re my dad?” comes out from the mouth of the young boy in question.

 

 

 

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

**_Nine_ **

There is a moment of absolute silence, a short standstill in time as neither himself nor Regina knows what to do or say. He could not even let himself breathe, though he is acutely aware of the loud and fast thumping of his heart inside his chest. He is half expecting it to burst of his shirt and is mildly surprised that it has not yet.

This is terrible…and absolutely not the way he'd imagined this scenario turning out. He would be lying if he doesn't admit that upon finding out that he has a son with Regina, he'd thought about the ways his son could find out about his paternity. Robin has imagined so many different ways that this exact moment would go. He'd dreamt about it for years: even when he had not known what had happened to Regina, or their son, had dreamt about it when he'd used to watch Regina from afar, when coexisting and acknowledging each other's existence had not been something they were keen on doing—if only for the sake of their poor battered hearts yearning for the other even after all those years.

He'd dreamt about it many different times in many different ways, and none of them had involved this. None of them had been Henry accidentally finding out by overhearing his parents fight about whether it is time to tell him or not. None of those dreams had his son staring at them looking betrayed, and both of them standing there like idiots, like two deer caught in the headlight.

He doesn't dare move a muscle, futilely hoping that this but a dream and nothing more, hoping he has a better chance at telling his son that he's his father and the chance to explain, if not the chance to be granted a happy. Despite the reality he's facing now, he still wishes he hasn't been robbed this as much as he'd been robbed of everything else.

But no, of course not.

Belatedly, he hears the slamming of the door and Regina's barely audible " _Henry",_ and then the boy is already out of sight, running away from them.

Well, fucking  _bollocks._

"Robin," Regina murmurs, apparently being the first one to recover, and she mutely reaches out to grasp his arm, trying to bring him out of his musings.

Robin flinches. He doesn't want to, but he can't help it but blame her for it. If she had not been so stubborn, if she had just let him ease their son to the fact that he is Henry's father, not some random man from Regina's past. Henry  _is_  their son—his and Regina's, and she should not have taken away from him the right to have Henry know that. More than anything, Robin thinks she should not have deprived their son the chance to know that he has a father, a father who loves him very much. But it's too late now.

Henry knows—knows he does have a father, anyway, and he's found out in the worst of ways and that is something they can no longer take back.

"I'll go talk to him," Regina says dejectedly. "It's all my fault anyway." He watches as she runs her fingers through her hair and curses under his breath.

He stops her though, grabbing her elbow, his fingers pressing against the fabric of her thin jumper. She looks at him with desperation in her eyes and he feels his anger for her dissipate and dissolve, melting away into something else:  _guilt._  He is just as guilty, because he knows he should not be blaming her, he should be blaming their parents for this mess instead. And by god, he did,  _does._

"I'll go," he insists in a voice that books no room for arguments. If there is anyone who should talk to their son, then he feels like, he knows that it should be him. He knows Regina will only blame herself and that won't go far in explaining properly to Henry what had really happened between them. Besides, it isn't Regina who should be blamed, it should be Cora, and his parents, and Henry Sr. for not stopping them, despite not wanting it to happen.

Regina nods at him mutely and he lets his hand slide down to hers, squeezing her fingers softly just to make sure that she knows that he's here and that they are a team, she isn't alone in this.

"I promise, he doesn't hate you," he tells her, knowing by the look in her eyes that it is what she's thinking about. But he knows Henry adores his mother too much to hate her, and even if Henry should have and does get an inkling to do so, then Robin would make sure that he won't. "I promise to make sure that he won't."

Regina exhales, and he sees her shoulder sag before she nods at him. He nods back and moves away but this time it is her who grabs his hand. He looks back at her in puzzlement.

"Thank you," she says, smiling softly at him.

"No problem, love," he tells her and then he's off to find their son.

**…**

If there is ever a time that Regina hated herself more than normal, it would definitely be right this moment. She should have listened to Robin, to reason, should have known that there are no secrets that won't come back to bite her in the ass. She should have told her son who his father is and allowed Robin to explain his side to their son, should have let Robin shed a different light to the situation. She should have allowed her son to find out about his paternity in a completely different way than he had.

She had been selfish, had put her own need to protect herself before her own son and his needs, his right to know the truth. She wished she'd acted and decided smarter than she had, but there is no way to turn back time and change things.

With a heavy heart, she makes her way to the living room where Roland is currently lying on the couch, slumbering, blissfully and completely unaware of the chaos unfolding around him. Regina wishes that she has that same bliss, the kind induced by ignorance of the situation—simply because he need not be involved in the mess she and the boy's father created (mostly her, to be honest). She wishes she doesn't have to sit here and fret over what is going on, about how her son is and he's thinking now that he knows. For the umpteenth time within the last half hour, Regina wishes she could turn back time and do things differently.

But she has not. She did not.

And now it's too late, and she can do nothing but sit tight and wait.

**…**

Robin's heart is beating so rapidly in his chest that it makes him wonder exactly how it had not popped out of his clothes. In theory, he should not be afraid of the boy—he's the adult here, and Henry is barely even eleven for cripes sake. What harm could his son really do to him? None, physically, surely. But that is not what he's afraid of. A punch on the face, Robin would gladly take if it would make Henry feel better. After all, he might even deserve that. It's the emotional pain, the rejection and the betrayal he might see in his son's eyes. He's afraid of the questions he cannot answer, the questions he can, but does not want to.

He sighs. It's supposed to be a glorious moment: Henry finding out that he is his father, but now it's all gloomy and not at all what he's envisioned this turning out to be.

He finds Henry near the dock, sitting down with his arms around himself as he fights the blistering cold.  _Stubborn, like his mother,_ he thinks as he remembers fondly that one time that Regina had refused to get in his car despite the harsh Maine winter air, and had actually walked her way home just because she had been irritated by him and absolutely refused to be in a confined space with him. Granted, he'd been a colossal idiot then (he's not sure entirely what he's done, but is definitely sure he'd been beyond control because rarely does Regina even punish him with silence for anything). He'd been left trailing after her in his car, pleading with her to just climb in, but she'd been resolute and had ignored him, despite the obvious trembling of her body.

Robin shakes his head at the memory and makes his way to where his son is sitting, quietly so he won't scare him—lest he falls into the water and Regina has his head—and takes a seat beside him. Henry looks sideways but remains silent, his eyes looking straight forward again once Robin has settled. He scoots away ever so slightly, and if things weren't so serious and if his heart isn't as heavy as the situation is, he'd have smiled at how similar their son actually is to Regina, despite not growing up with her.

He is very much like his mother, Robin thinks with a soft, silent snort.

"Hi Henry," Robin blurts out, coming up with the first thing he thinks of, which is lame he admits, but what else is there to say? How is he even supposed to start a conversation about…

"You lied to me," Henry says, his voice low but clear, cutting off Robin's train of thoughts, and it seems that his son has less tact and is more straightforward than him (he hates to be repetitive, but he knows exactly where Henry gets it from). "You made it seem like you didn't know who my father is, when all along you knew. You might not have really lied to me but not telling me the truth, not telling me what you  _did_  know is still lying! It's still wrong." Henry takes a deep breath, huffing out: "You didn't tell me and you lied."

It is somewhat embarrassing and demeaning that his ten year old son should school him about honestly and lies about omission, when it should be the other way around, but Henry is absolutely right. He had not told him what he'd known, and instead had diverted his son's queries to his mother. That had been an utterly poor choice on his part.

The accusation his son flings to him hurts, is more than just a twinge painful because it is true. And it makes him feel like an absolute shit. At the time, it had seemed like he'd been respecting Regina's wishes. After all, she is the mother of one of his sons and she had, at that time, not wanted for Henry to know yet, not yet—so he'd justified not telling by that, had told himself he was being patient. He realizes now, however, that it isn't respect for Regina that's kept him from telling his son the truth. True, it's been part of it, but it's not all of it, and it had been his fear, his own fear that had really pushed him to not admit the truth. He relied on Regina's fears, her hesitation, and had taken that as his cover. Her reluctance to tell Henry that Robin is his father was a projection of his own and he'd hidden behind that, in order to hide from his own truth which is his own fear of being rejected by his own son. He is afraid of his worst dreams coming to reality, that his son would realize how much of a failure he is as a father, that he'd been unable to fight for him and his mother, and it's been the real reason they'd been apart for so long after all. For he could always pin the blame on their parents, and say they'd taken the decision from his and Regina's hands, but he knows deep inside, it should be him that should be blamed. He was,  _is_ , a failure, no matter what he tells himself. And his rejection of himself coupled with the possible rejection he might, undoubtedly, get from his own son had been the very reason he'd not told him the truth. He's afraid of the very real possibility that he won't be enough, that he won't live to his son's expectations, to his wants and needs.

It had been easy to use Regina's apprehension as a scapegoat.

Well, not anymore.

He is going to own up to what he's done.

"Sorry," he begins solemnly but sincerely as he looks over at his son, wishing he could hold him but knowing he can't yet, now is not the best time, not now and not yet. "I had not been completely honest with you, I know, but I had not meant to lie to you. I did not want to lie to you, and I promise that moving forward I never will." He places a hand over his chest to signify how true he is to his words. "Your mum thought it was best to find the right time to tell you, to have you sat down and told what really happened, or as much as we can tell you, to avoid this kind of reaction. To avoid hurting you," he continues sighing. "She didn't want to just spring it out on you because she didn't want you to be surprised."

Henry swallows and nods once. He gives him the side-eye. "And you? What's your excuse?" he asks, and in that moment Robin realizes just how much growing up his son had to do while away from them and it breaks his heart. He should not have to be dealing with all of this, any of this.

"Unlike your mother, I do not have any good excuse," Robin answers honestly. It doesn't bode well with his son, obviously, as his face scrunches up in distaste. "I had wanted to tell you a long time ago, but I suppose I agreed with your mum that there was a right time for it. And springing it out on you was not it. Except, I suppose if it is up to me, no time would have been the right time. I was scared Henry." Robin feels his throat and mouth dry up and he wishes he is anywhere but here at the moment, but this  _is_  the moment and there is no escaping it. He's done so much escaping out of this already. "I was scared to tell you I guess, and so I just let time pass."

"The best time to tell me would have been when we got here," Henry tells him as-a-matter-of-factly, and Robin can't help but agree. "Or before that, or when I asked you, or before that, too! You should not have lied to me."

"I know that now, Henry, and I'm very sorry I did not. I see now that it isn't to anyone's good. I know it doesn't excuse anything but I have been very scared."

Henry looks at him fully now. "Scared of what?" he asks.

Robin breathes in deeply and exhales loudly. "I was scared you would turn away from me, and that you'd think I abandoned you. I was scared that you'd hate me."

The truth spills from his mouth like tea from a cup.

"Didn't you?" Henry asks, voice small and innocent. It's curiosity that tinges his voice and not malice, but still the simple question pierces through Robin's heart and he wishes he could turn back time and change things, only he knows he can't. He's willed himself to do so, so many times before and had proved himself unsuccessful and dreaming a pipe dream. Henry might as well have flung acid to Robin's face because Robin reckons that would hurt less.

"No," Robin says, a little louder than he intends to, a little more forceful, a little more passionate, that it makes Henry jump a little. "No, God no, Henry, I would have never. I loved your mother, loved her with my whole being, the thought of abandoning you never crossed my mind. I admit I have failed you as a father, and your mother, I have failed her too, but I never wanted to leave you. I was in fact, overjoyed when your mother told me about you. I was so happy. I created you with your mother who was,  _is_ , the love of my life, and you my darling boy were a product of a love so pure and so true. Henry I wanted to keep you. I wanted to marry your mother and keep both of you by my side forever. Your mother wanted to keep you too. We had plans of marrying and raising you, maybe giving you siblings, not putting you up to adoption. I swear Henry."

Henry is quiet for the most part, and the words that had fallen from Robin's lips pool between them, stewing, untouched. From a distance, a bull frog croaks into the darkness of the night while silence settles between father and son.

"So what happened?" Henry finally asks him after a beat of elongated silence. Robin is half afraid he'd already said too much.

But he's made a promise to be honest to the boy and so honest he shall be. "I told you your mother didn't have a choice, didn't I?" he asks to which the boy responds with a nod. "I don't suppose I did too. Or at that time, I didn't feel like I had the choice. I was barely nineteen, fresh out of high school and looking at the uncertainty of University, and your mother was barely just eighteen, same as me. One moment we were looking at college pamphlets, the next we were looking at appointments with the doctor to have you checked…and when things happened, when our parents decided to take action, there seemed to have no other recourse. I didn't know how to fight for you and your mother against them, because they just had to know better."

He feels anger rising up his throat again. And it's equal parts hatred for Cora and his parents for deciding for his and Regina's futures without asking them, and for Henry standing there and doing nothing to stop it (though he understands Henry Sr. might have been outnumbered and had his hands tied), and for himself for not fighting harder for the family he should have had.

"So my grandparents didn't want me?" Henry asks despondently, his shoulders slumping, and God Robin feels like an asshole on behalf of the boy's grandparents for doing what they'd done.

"No Henry, of course that's not…" Robin struggles to explain because he's thought about it over and over and he knows it looks exactly like that, and feels exactly like that. He doesn't want to paint Cora or his parents in any other light than the truth, but he does not want his son to feel like shit either, just because his grandparents were,  _are_ , assholes. "Your grandparents—of course they all love you. They just acted on impulse, on what they thought was right. At that time, your mum and I were very young, just out of high school, they didn't think we could take care of you and ourselves and each other. We loved each other dearly, Henry, and love you just as much. Our parents, I suppose despite everything, they loved us too, and loved you as well. We were just so young then Henry that they might have thought they were giving us and you our best chance."

"Our best chance was to be together," Henry says adamantly, and Robin thinks that he's got no need to be so passionate, he's preaching to the choir. However, for a moment, for one glorious moment he sees so much of himself on his son that it makes his heart swell in his chest. He wishes he could protect him and Roland and Regina from the rest of the world. He knows he cannot but he wishes all the same.

"I know that, my son, and I agree with you," he tells the young boy who shares his flesh and blood. "We cannot turn back time though, now can we?"

Henry shakes his head and sighs. "No, we can't."

Robin wraps an arm around his son tentatively, sighing in relief when Henry does not push him away or pull himself away. "So we make do with the second chance we're being given. You were brought back to us for a reason. You sought your mother out, and me by extension, for a reason. And that's because everyone deserves a second chance—even you and me, and your mum—we all deserve a second chance, my boy. We just need to open our eyes to see it."

Robin feels like he might actually soar the moment he feels Henry's arms wrap around his middle, the little boy's face pressing against his chest as he nods lightly. Robin embraces his son fully, tighter, and though there as so many things that feels as good as this, only a few come to mind, all of them blurred right at the moment by the feeling he feels right now, because this right here is heaven to him.

"Do you still love my mom?" Henry asks him then, words muffled by his chest, and Robin is not just a bit startled. He supposes he should have seen this coming, because of course, he would ask this.

Robin doesn't know what to say. On the one hand, admitting his feelings to his boy might complicate things, but on the other, he does not want to lie. Not to Henry, and not to himself either—because of course he still loves the boy's mother. Robin doesn't think he's ever loved anyone but Regina Mills in all his life.

"Henry, I…" Robin trails off and sighs deeply. He does not want to lie to his son but he does not want Henry to get any ideas. "What I feel for your mum…it's real and true. And I have loved your mother longer than I have not, or that I care to admit." He could already to see the wheels turning in his son's head and could hear the next words he will say, so Robin puts a stop to that. "But whatever we had…that's over now, and whatever might come, is between your mother and I. It does not need to worry you, my boy."

"But if you love each other, if you still love her, then we can still have a chance at being a proper family!"

Robin wants that, more than anything, but knows he cannot force Regina to see what is right in front of her if she doesn't want to open her eyes to it. "We  _are_  a family, Henry. It might not be conventional but we are."

"But," Henry begins to protest, and Robin understands where the boy is coming from, wants to tell him that he wants nothing more than to be a proper family with him, his mother and Roland, but they cannot have that. They cannot force that.

"I'm afraid, Henry, that there are things that you're simply too young to understand," Robin concludes, noting the pout that forms on his son's lips. It's the truth though. Robin thinks that there are things that even  _he_  could not understand, and he's no longer a young boy, but a full grown adult with two boys of his own. "Whatever we are, a proper family or not, or whatever your mother and I are to each other, know that it does not and will not affect our love for you." He sighs and drops a kiss on his son's forehead, pulling him close. "I will always love you and Roland more than anything in this world, okay?"

Henry sighs, as though he has something else to say, but instead he knows. "Okay," he concedes, and then looks up at him. "Can I call you dad, though?" he asks tentatively as he pulls away.

With only a few words his son manages to turn his world around and knock him off his feet. It's really a good thing he's sitting.

"Yes, Henry, of course you can. I mean if that's what you want…if you want to, oh God, I would love it," he rambles on, feeling as though his heart  _might_  actually explode from his chest.

"Okay dad," Henry whispers as he throws his arms around Robin again.

Robin feels like he's just won the lottery…only this is better, much, much better.

**…**

Regina tries to occupy herself, but with nothing much to do in a house that she does not own, her efforts at calming herself down fall flat. She tries not to think too much about it, wanting to trust Robin that he could make this all okay, but it's hard not to worry, and Christ, she cannot help it.

It's been a while since they'd been gone and they still have not come back. Regina feels like she won't be able to hold herself from coming to get them any longer.

She knows she should have been the one to come after their son. She should have been the one to explain, after all it is her fault that they would need an explanation in the first place. It is because of her that it's all become tangled and complicated. True, she hadn't had the choice, and it had not been her decision to give her son away, but this—letting Henry know who his father is—this is all on her. She had a choice. A choice that she has clearly made and had it blowing up in her face. She's made a decision that only benefitted her, she made a choice, and a selfish one at that.

She should be the one to fix the mess, not Robin. She'd been the one to ask Robin not to Henry just yet, after all, saying it isn't the right time. She wonders now what she's been thinking—obviously the right time had been the moment she'd found out that Henry is their son. She should have told Robin she'd found their son, and she should have told Henry about Robin. She should have told both father and son, then. She should not have kept it a secret, now look at what happened.

The door from the back creaks softly, and Regina springs up from where she is seated across the slumbering Roland. Quietly, she makes her way to where she knows Robin and their son will be.

She rushes to Henry and wraps him up in a warm embrace and kisses his forehead. She cups his chin and stares him right in the eyes. "Sorry darling," she tells him, softly but firmly—sincerely. "I should have told you. I should have never kept it a secret."

Henry shakes his head and wraps his arms around her. "It's okay, mom," he says. "I forgive you. I understand why you did it."

Regina very much doubts he understands, not completely anyway, but she nods anyway—never to take the gift horse by the mouth—and hugs him back.

"I know I turned out to be the villain in the story, lying to you like that," she says, relating to his affection for comics and storybooks (feeling that he no doubt thinks of her that way), "But I swear I had not meant to. And I am really sorry."

"You're my mom, not a villain," Henry assures her, kissing her cheek. "Besides, Dad has already explained everything to me." He then jerks his head towards where Robin is standing.

_Dad._

Henry's referred to Robin as Dad, and of course he has, of course. Robin  _is_ his dad. The moment though of hearing their son calling Robin him that still takes her aback, and she feels as though her breath has been literally stolen from her and she is unable to make a step back and unable to stop the small gasp of surprise from escaping her parted lips.

At that moment, she feels like every dream she's ever dreamed came true. All except one, but that is neither here nor there to the current situation.

Christ almighty, she feels as though she might float from sheer happiness.

Father and son, however, don't take it as happiness and both frown identically.

"Is it okay?" Henry rushes to ask, taking her gasp as her disagreement. "Can I call him Dad?"

Regina looks at her son's wide, almost pleading eyes, and then at Robin's sparkling blue ones and even had she wanted to say no, she could definitely not have.

"Of course, honey," Regina assures her son, smiling at him. "Of course you can if that is what you want, then of course you can. And of course, if your dad agrees."

Henry looks at Robin then at Regina, while Regina focuses on Robin who is nodding as eagerly as their son.

"I have no objections if that is what Henry wants," Robin says and of course, he does not.

Regina nods at the both of them before taking their son in her arms again and hugging him tight. God she loves him, loves him more than anything in this world.

Silence settles between the three of them and for a moment, Regina basks in it, in the glorious feeling of having her son in her arms as Robin watches from a close distance with a soft smile of his face and a dreamy look in his eyes.

It all seems like a dream, yet, it seems so real, and this could be real, in fact if she closes her eyes she could pretend that this is real—they are a family, that she is his and he is hers, and that she's holding her oldest son in his arms, while their youngest son sleeps on in the living room.

But those are very dangerous thoughts to have and so she opens her eyes and pulls away from her son, straightening up and peering down his beautiful brown eyes.

"I love you, Henry," Regina murmurs, breaking the silence.

"And I love you," Henry responds, "You and Dad."

"I love you too," Robin says back, although his eyes flicker briefly to Regina's.

Regina tries to shrug it off, but it's not that easy, not when all her emotions are close to the surface, all of those years yearning for him and the future they could have had if it only weren't stolen from them coming back to haunt her.

They could have had this, all of this and more, but their parents had taken it away from them, they'd taken it all away.

She feels the same anger Robin feels bubbling in her chest and she tries to dispel it, tries to focus on the here and now, on what is real and present, but it is hard, it's made more difficult by the picture of father and son she loves more than anything in the world. It's made difficult by today when she'd gotten a taste of what her life could have been with her son and Robin, and his boy who she's coming to love very much.

Luckily a diversion comes in the form of the very boy, a curly haired little dimpled hobbit comes crashing into her legs, knocking her thoughts away before she can run further away with it.

"I'm hungry," the boy whines as he walks into the kitchen, blissfully unaware of the drama that just unfolded in that same space. "Can we have dinner?" He clasps his hands together and looks at her with doe eyes. She'd seen that look many, many times, before from a different set of eyes. "Please?"

Regina chuckles and then sniffs, moving a bit so she can face the boy without fully letting go of Henry. "Of course we can, darling," she tells him with a bright smile, "And we should but I haven't gotten anything started. I didn't know what your daddy's plans were." She throws a glance at the boys' father and he shrugs.

"I thought we could just drive down at Granny's or John's and have a meal there," he suggests, and Regina honestly doesn't see anything wrong with that. In fact, she could do without the stress of having to prepare a meal for all four of them, even as she thinks that two meals of unwholesome, greasy, junk food is too much for one day. Robin must have taken her brief silence as disagreement because then he adds, "Or I probably could scour up something healthier here."

 _Something_  means processed, too much sodium packet of chicken nuggets and some boiled veggies the boys will probably turn their noses up on, or some macaroni and cheese. That much Regina knows after she had rummaged through his fridge and cupboard out of nothing better to do.

"No it's fine," Regina tells him then, smiling. "I think it's a great idea. I don't really feel like cooking and I'm sure neither do you. Let's just bring the boys over at John's. Please just ask John if he could hustle up something healthy for the boys, maybe a stir fry with some chicken or something with veggies."

Robin nods his acquiescence before he moves in search of his keys while Roland makes a face at the mention of vegetables, exclaiming a totally disgusted ' _eww_!', making Regina chuckle softly, ruffling his hair. She shakes her head and ushers both boys to get their coats and then out the door where Robin is already waiting outside in the car.

**…**

Robin watches as his sons run around with John's kids and he feels a stirring in his chest that he can only classify as genuine happiness and contentment.

If he never has a shot with Regina, then he supposes he will be happy with just this—with his two boys he loves more than life. That, of course, does not at all mean he won't like another shot with her.

Of course  _not._

At this point, they have not told Roland yet about his relation with Henry, though Robin very much doubts that Roland would mind. He already loves Henry to the point of hero-worship, and though it seems as though Henry does not know what to do with a boy so young as his brother, the boy nonetheless dotes on the younger tyke, and it's all so adorable, if you ask Robin. To Roland, finding out that the coolest person he knows is actually his brother would just simply be delightful.

Robin turns to Regina, his gaze falling on to her beautiful face as she watches the two boys. There is a smile on her face as she looks over them softly, her eyes twinkling. Somehow, she's become attached to Roland as well, and the thought makes his heart lurch, makes him want to do a jig. It probably means nothing, Roland is an adorable little boy and everyone who encounters him is easily enchanted—his bias notwithstanding—but it simply does things to him that it's  _her,_  it's  _Regina_  who is getting attached to his son. It will probably not end well, statistics and history suggest that it won't—but it doesn't help him from being excited.

Regina looks as content as he feels right at that moment, and not for the first time since finding out that his son is alive, since knowing her and realizing he's so utterly, foolishly besotted with her (and not the last time either), he wishes they could have this; that they  _do_  have this.

Not for the first time and definitely not for the last time he is reminded with the bitter reality that they  _don't_.

"It's nice to see Henry enjoying himself around kids near his age," Regina comments, breaking his train of thoughts. He's grateful for the respite because of the sour route it had taken. Robin looks at the woman he loves (has always loved) with question, silently urging her to continue. "The nuns at the convent told me that Henry was very shy, very awkward around kids. He had one friend, her name was Grace, whose mother apparently died of childbirth, her father had been unavailable after that—he...well, he lost his mind for a lack of better term, and they had no family, so she was sent to an orphanage where she met our son. They grew up together, but three years ago, Little Grace had been adopted by a nice couple and Henry went back to being a loner."

"They told you all this?" Robin ass, a little surprised.

Regina frowns and shrugs. "I was interested in my child's upbringing, so I asked. And the nuns—after finding out what really happened, how I never wanted to send my son away—they told me," she answers him a bit defensively—no doubt thinking that he's implying that she's done something wrong by asking or that she's broken some rules, or breached confidentiality or whatever the fuck she's thinking that makes her take his question the wrong way. To the hell with it.

That's not what he's meant.

"I know. I was just surprised I guess that you knew all these, and that they've been so invested in our boy," he says, trying to calm her overworked mind. "I know he's special. He's my son, after all," he teases, making Regina snort and smile and roll her eyes. "I just didn't think that with all the children they look after, they'd be so invested in him."

Regina shakes her head. "He's my son, too, you best remember that," she teases back, and God yes, he remembers so well, so very well—even how he's made, but that's a thought for another day. "Henry was...well, he's a very a sneaky boy. I told you about how he managed to go from Boston to Maine, and how he found me. He takes after you, I'm afraid—full of mischief and always wanting adventures." Regina chuckles, allowing Robin to do the same, and he's unable to deny that yes, his sons have taken after him in that regard, and though he really should not, he's a bit proud of that too. "He's a very mischievous little boy, so they nuns had to make sure that he doesn't do anything sneaky. But more importantly, they're looking after him out of fear of what the other kids do or say to him. I was told that he was being bullied at the orphanage."

Robin feels his heart drop to his stomach. His son had been bullied. "But why?" he asks, genuinely confused. "Henry's such an amazing, polite, kind kid. Why would anyone, why would they bully him?"

Regina shrugs, a sad expression taking over her features. "I'm afraid I don't know why. He's our son and I think he's amazing too and brilliant and we both want the best for him and to protect him from the world. But kids are...they're kids. They can be mean and brutal and uncaring of what they do and it's inevitable that things like this happen. I don't like anymore than you do that our son is the target, but we will have to accept the fact that there will be kids who won't be nice or kind to him, and there is no answering why and that neither you nor I can do anything about it anymore." She sighs. "I was hoping that Storybrooke could offer him a fresh start, and so far, he's been excelling in school and I was told he's fitting in wonderfully. He now has friends and he even had sleepover with the Tillman kids—Nick and Ava. All we can do now is support him. I'm being vigilant now and taking precautions that he doesn't suffer the same fate, or at the very least, I make he sure he knows he doesn't have to be alone and that he can tell me anything and I will do everything in my power to make it right."

Robin nods resolutely, agreeing with everything she says. "Let me help," he asks pleadingly, because now that he's in his son's life, he'll be damned if he's not involved.

Regina smiles at him and touches his wrist, right above his tattoo, surprising him that she should initiate contact when she seems to be adamant to put a wall between them. He fights the surprise from showing on his face though, out of the risk that she'd see it and realize what she's done. "As much as you want to and can," she promises, squeezing his wrist in a way that's almost loving. It transports Robin back to the time when they had been lovers and this had been ordinary, and not at all a big deal as it is now.

He wishes he could take back time, but knows he cannot. So this, her and him and their kids, right here, right now—this is enough for now.

For now.

**..**

It is nearing Roland's bedtime by the time the two of them decided it is time to go home. It doesn't go well with the over tired and sleepy toddler, obviously, who turned sour and cranky when his father told him it's to leave. He looks every bit as sleepy as he no doubt feels, but he does look like he is trying to fight it (valiant effort on his part, but he's failing). He also fights the idea of going home, throwing a fit of epic proportions than Robin has ever seen him throw, running towards the table where he and Regina had spent the better part of the night, chatting with John and his wife. They are the only ones left in the diner as it's already closed.

Roland throws himself at Regina's lap, crying that he doesn't want to go home and he wants to stay and play. He watches as Regina pulls the young boy in her arms and tries to hush his hysterical cries, running a hand up and down his back, whispering soothing words to him. Robin reckons he should go ahead and be the one to settle his son down, but hit eldest sidles up next to him and lays his head on his shoulder. He turns to look at him and finds him looking as tired and sleepy as Roland, although he's much quieter. Robin feels a warmth settling in his chest as he wraps his arms around Henry, letting him lean into him. With one nod from Regina who is sat across them, watching while soothing Roland, he lets her deal with the whiny toddler. They both k now that if he tries to even take over, Roland who is now hiccupping softly against Regina's chest, will only rip them a new own and go hysterical again.

John uses the time to usher his kids upstairs, telling Robin he'll be back in a moment. Robin nods and looks over at Regina, offering to get Roland who is already falling asleep in her arms. She shakes her head, but before she can even make a verbal response, Roland protests at the idea, whining, and that notion is quickly put to rest. Instead they decide that it's definitely time to go home. Henry looks like he might fall asleep standing up, too.

They bid their goodbyes and goodnights once John and his wife are back. John's wife, Elena, makes them promise to come back soon, and successfully extracts a promise from Regina to teach her how to make her original apple pies.

Regina chuckles and tells her that she will, as long as Elena teaches her how to make the lemon meringue they'd been served during desert. It's a quick and resolute yes from Elena, and it's a sweet, tender moment between two women, and it's almost normal, almost like a moment in time when they're once what they used to be, with their lives once again intertwined.

But that's a pipe dream, is what it is. Just a moment in time, a short, window of a moment. And maybe, that's all he'll ever get.

**...**

Regina isn't sure whether she needs a good night's sleep, a glass (bottle) of wine, or a long, luxurious bubble bath when she and Henry get home. It's been such a long day—long and wonderful. Too wonderful, in fact, that she just wants it to end. She doesn't really need any more of this, not days like this one when she's too happy and feeling too great, not if they are spent with Robin and his sons.

It's a great life, such a great life—one that she can never have, and she finds that it's for the best if she doesn't get glimpses of it, gets a taste of what she's missing, because it only serves to hurt her more. It hurts to have a taste of something so good, knowing she'll only have a taste but never really have it.

It's too late for that right now, she knows.

Sighing, she closes her eyes and leans back on the chair, letting her head fall against the headrest. She fights the tears that she knows will come, and saves it for later, in the silence and comfort of her own bedroom.

"You alright?" she hears Robin ask her and she lolls her head to the side and opens her eyes slowly.

"I'm okay," she whispers with a soft, sad smile. "I'm great, actually. Thank you." She looks at him to let him know that despite the pain, despite the words that she cannot say, she isn't only thanking him for asking. She is thanking him for today.

He nods, and she turns her head further to the back to take a peek to the two boys now sleeping on their seats. Roland is in his car seat, his chubby little hands clutching Henry's arm as he sits asleep next to his brother, head leaning against the younger boy.

It's a beautiful sight to see. Regina isn't entirely sure if she wants to remember it or burn it entirely from memory.

She doesn't really need this kind of pain.

Leaning back on her chair and closing her eyes once more, she lets her mind rest for now. At this point, she might just call pain her new best friend—though, she thinks they'd been friends for eleven long years now, so really, what's new?

She hasn't even realized that she's fallen asleep until she feels herself being shaken awake and hears her name being called softly. She opens her eyes slowly, eyelids softly fluttering, and the first sight that greets her is Robin's smiling face.

She feels herself smiling too. "Robin," she murmurs sleepily, trying to roll over to her side. This is a dream, she knows that, knows that she won't ever wake with Robin beaming at her. She's known that the hard way, had been awoken from dreams like this one, one too many times and rather rudely, too.

"Wake up, love," Robin's raspy voice murmurs to her ear, and she feels his warm hand cupping her cheek. And God, hearing him say that sounds amazing—she wishes he'd say that to her for the rest of their lives, every morning. This  _is_  definitely a dream. "Come on, sleeping beauty, time to wake up." She feels his thumb rub the cheek he's holding and it jolts her awake. She opens her eyes once more and finds that nope, no this isn't a dream.

Robin is, in fact, standing in front of her with a smile and she's sitting on the front seat of his car.

"Hello there, sleeping beauty," he tells her with a soft smile, brushing the stray hair out of her face, making her heart skip a thousand beats and no, nope, no, this can't be real. "Had a good kip?"

She stammers as her heart hammers inside her chest and she struggles to climb out of the chair (Robin, it appears, has already unclasped her seat belt). "Um yeah, yeah, thanks." And then she remembers the boys and she turns her head back to the car, narrowly missing Robin's eye as her hair flipped about.

"The boys are inside," he tells her, making her turn around to face him again, hair whipping about and this time actually hitting Robin in the cheek. He only smiled. "I carried them both inside and put them to bed."

She nods softly and then sidesteps Robin to make her way inside. Robin moves aside, allowing her to do as she pleases. Before she makes the step, she breathes in deeply first and straightens out her clothes and heaves her bag upon her shoulders.

"I need to go," she tells him unnecessarily as she makes her way to the house to collect her son. Robin's voice calling out to her stops her on her tracks though, and she turns around to look at him.

"I was hoping Henry could stay the night," he says but it's more of a question than a statement. "He's already settled in bed and it's really late to wake him up." His reason is logical, and deep inside Regina knows that, sees the logic in it, but it outrages her that Robin could even suggest that.

"Have you lost your damn mind?" she asks, almost bellowing at him, but she tries to be mindful of the fact that although they are within Robin's property, they are still outside. Really, there are no neighbours for miles, but her overworked and overtired mind and heart have not caught up to that fact yet. And after today's events she needs a good lashing out. "You want to keep Henry here for the night and set tongues working? You forget Robin that this is such a small town! What would—,"

He looks livid when he cuts her off with: "Your mother say?" he asks, and his voice is loud and strong, and it would have scared Regina if it's not Robin. As it is, she can see how much he's fighting to stay calm.

He's right, though, she's thinking of Cora and the people of Storybrooke. She doesn't want to give her mother another reason to rip her a new one, or the people of Storybrooke to make her the headline for a month. She's not much a fan of gossips, and would really much rather not be a part of any narratives. She doesn't tell him that though, and instead, she sniffs and turns her head away, turning her nose up at him.

"Good fucking God, Regina! Do you really think I give a stinking fuck what your mother would say?" He breathes deeply and clenches his fists. "She's said all she had to say eleven years ago. I don't fucking care about her anymore."

That's because he's not the one to endure her.

"It's not just Cora," she murmurs to defend herself, although she's lost her fight now. She could have just made an excuse rather than go off at him like she had, but she's too tired and her feelings have been too raw, too on the surface the whole day.

"Oh damn it, Regina! You think I care about the town and what all those gossip mongers have to say? I didn't care then and I sure as hell don't give a flying fuck now, either. They can say whatever bloody fuck they want. All I care about is my family," he tells her. "All I care about are my sons," he pauses then breathes, continues with: "And you."

She shakes her head. "It's not your place to care about me anymore."

He chuckles, but it sounds sad and desperate. "Why do you keep fighting this, Regina? Don't you know by now that you cannot stop yourself from loving me as much as I can't stop myself from loving you? Haven't you realized by now that we're meant to spend the rest of our lives together with our sons? That even after all these years there is no one else for me or for you but each other?"

Regina stands there, frozen and speechless, her tears so close to falling, unable to do anything but breathe through the pain and swallow down the thing that's now lodged in her throat.

"It's not...we were never supposed to be apart, my love, and you know that. You said it yourself, you're just afraid of what will change, of how having me back in your life will change it...but have you thought about how wonderful that change could be?" he asks her and he makes a fair point, but she can't. Not right now. "We were supposed to have this...you, me, Henry, and Roland...and all of the other kids we wished to have...we could have this. We could still have this."

"But we don't," she exclaims, and one lone tear slips down her cheeks. She brushes it away angrily. She turns away from him, in case other fall too, despite her willing them not to. "We don't have this. We can't have this."

"Don't stop yourself from having what you could have just because you're afraid of what other people would say, or god forbid what your mother would say," he pleads with her. "What she would say or what the others would say didn't stop you from claiming Henry and bringing him home with you where he belongs. Why can't you do the same with me? Why can't come home to my arms where  _you_  belong?"

She can't listen to this anymore, doesn't want to listen to him anymore. Her heart, or what's left of it, it's broken, it's crumbling, she can't—the pain is too much. She squares her shoulder and tells herself to soldier on.

"I'll come by to pick up Henry before lunch," she mutters, and then she walks away.

Like all those years ago, she walks away again.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy Crapola I finally managed to write an update!!! It only took me 84 years!!! Hope you guys like it. 
> 
> Unbetaed.

  
**Ten**

There is a special kind if discomfort in the knowledge that she’s about to see him again so soon after something so raw just occurred between them, merely a few hours ago. She wants more time, honestly wants to just skip coming over for lunch entirely, wants to put another eleven years between them if she can. She is aware, though, that while she might be in need of more time, there’s not much left of it.

  
Besides, she’d promised both boys when they’d called her this morning that she’s staying for lunch and will pick up Henry, instead of having Robin drive their son to her home. And, despite not feeling very much like one right now, she’s an adult. She can deal with this.

  
So she’d squared her shoulders and brought as much courage as she could with her as she’d climbed out of her Mercedes and made the long walk from Robin’s driveway to his front door. Every step feels like she’s dragging something heavy behind her, and maybe she is: all the baggage she has yet to let go.

  
She’d reached out to ring the doorbell, but she’d been beaten to it by the door swinging open and two very, very excited boys greeting her, jumping all around her, smiles on their little faces as they crowd her. Her son throws his arms around her waist while Robin’s much smaller one halts in front of her and stares until she opens her arms. He comes barrelling into her legs, crashing into them and wrapping his own little arms around them. She chuckles, reaching out to the nearest wall to steady herself and stop from toppling over.

  
The two boys barely give her time to wrap her head around what’s happening before they are dragging her into the house, simultaneously trying to tell her how much fun they’d had in their sleepover. She cranes her neck a bit, trying to get a glimpse of the man who owns the house, the man who owns her heart—not that she’d ever tell him that.

  
She wants to ask the boys but refrains, not wanting to seem or sound too eager to see him, even if she reasons to herself that it is just natural to look for the man who took care of her kid last night. Granted, he’s his kid, too...but...

  
“He’s preparing lunch in the kitchen. He’s making barbecue,” her son tells her, looking up at her from where he’s sitting next to her on the couch, still wrapped around her. Roland is sitting on her other side and looking up at her, too, catching up on the fact that she is looking for their father.

  
He grins, dimples popping from the way his lips stretch. “And potatoes!” he adds enthusiastically, making Regina grin at him, her fingers pinching his chin in between.

  
“Roland and I can entertain ourselves, if you want to talk to Dad,” Henry says, ever the perceptive child, and Regina hesitates, not really entirely sure if she doesn’t want to just entertain the kids as well.

  
Whatever conversation she could have with their father had already been had, and whatever else they can say need not be said in front of little ears, or at least within the hearing range of little kids.

  
And she’s not interested in rehashing everything that has already been said or making pleasant small talks they don’t really mean. (She is even less interested in acknowledging that he might actually be right, that he might be on to something, because that would...that would change things and she’s not ready).

  
“We’ll behave, I promise,” Henry adds when he senses his mother’s hesitation. She smiles at him and shakes her head at how grown up he seems sometimes. She leans in and kisses his forehead, making him scrunch his nose, and exclaim, “Mom!”

  
Roland giggles as he watches them, and Regina tickles his tummy making him giggle some more before she places a soft kiss on his forehead as well. Reluctantly, she leaves the safety of the kid’s company and trades it for the more dangerous waters that is their father’s.

  
She makes her way to the kitchen and spies him working on the some pan that seems to be the way he’s barbecuing the meat in lieu of the grill. She’d wondered, since it’s still cold, but then again, Robin is ingenious and she shouldn’t be surprised.

  
Quietly, she pads down to the counter, not wanting to startle him. But she should have known better.

  
“Roasted potatoes and broccoli okay with you?” he asks her, his back still turned, startling her instead.

  
She stifles her gasp, and shakes her head, biting down on her bottom lip. “No problem. Will the boys eat it?” she asks, unsure of what to say.

  
“Well, Roland is fond of potatoes and can stomach eating broccoli on his best days or at least he knows he has to. I gather Henry generally just eats veggies, even if they’re not on pizza? That’s what he said this morning when I asked.” His back is still turned, and she watches the way his muscles ripple as he moves about, feels her mouth water and it’s not for food.

  
She shakes her head though, reminds herself to reign herself in. After last night, she’d classified him as a jerk. He might be right, but still a jerk. So maybe a right jerk.  
She huffs silently at her thought.

  
“Yeah,” Regina agrees, nodding though she wonders if he can see it. “He’s not picky, and I had him checked. He’s not really allergic to any food.”

  
Robin doesn’t answer, just nods silently and goes back to his cooking. She remains quiet, too, wonders if she should ask to help, except the tension is thick and tangible in the room, and so she dares not speak.

  
It’s not a very comfortable silence.

  
She clears her throat, breaking the silence when she can no longer stomach it. “Do you need any help?” she asks finally.

  
He turns finally, and Regina can honestly swear she’s knocked back on her seat. She remembers quite clearly how insanely attractive Robin is. She’d been on the receiving end of his charm once upon a time, and she’s never really reminded how good looking he is, with his sparkling blue eyes and deep, deep dimples. She’s seen him through the years, too, despite not really wanting to, and age and time have both been very kind to him. His hair and scruff are peppered with grey, but he looks as handsome as he’s always been, maybe even more, and the lines in his eyes just make him more attractive. He looks wiser, looks like he’s lived a life and had not been afraid to, looks like he’s had some fun, the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles.

  
God, she needs to stop feeling like this with her son’s father.

  
It’s not going to happen.

  
They might still feel something for each other, and she’s accepted that he’s always going to be the love of her life, but it’s a long time ago now. Time has passed, and they’d missed their chance. Or at least, that’s what she tells herself to justify her actions and her fears. She’s not the same 18 year old girl, terrified to tell her mother and father she’s knocked up, she does not really have to live the same fears: of her son being ripped away from her, and her lover pushed as far away from her as possible. She’s thirty with a life of her own and all the power she needs, should she want to break free from her parents’ clasp, but sometimes, when she lays awake in her bed (like last night), ruminating and wasting time pining for the life she could have had, she realizes how much risk it would be to take the gamble and bet her heart on the same man twice. She’d barely survived losing him once, if she loses him again for some reason, she’s not going to live. She knows so. So it’s better this way.

  
“Regina?” she hears him say, making her snap out of her reverie. She looks at him fully and finds his face contorted with something akin to concern and confusion. “I said I got the food handled, and you can set the table with the boys if you’d like to.”

She shakes herself out of her thoughts and nods at him, smiling a little. “Okay, I’d like to,” she tells him, and then pushes herself out of the kitchen to where the boys are currently playing with Roland’s legos.

  
“Henry, Roland,” she calls them, trying to get their attention. Both boys look at her and then stand up, abandoning the toy. She’s going to have to talk to them about leaving their toys unattended and not returned to their rightful places later, but for now, she takes both their hands and lead them to the kitchen. “Let’s set the table okay?”

  
Both boys nod, and with Robin’s directives of where most things are stowed away, they make quick work of setting the table. They finish just in time for Robin to plate everything and Regina helps him bring everything to dining table. Robin doesn’t say anything but moves around her and with the kids underfoot, carefully extracts the lemonade he’d made earlier on from the fridge. They spend the next hour eating with the boys dominating most of the conversation. Just as well, because Regina doesn’t really know what to say.

  
She settles for stealing glances at him, looking away when he turns to her. Her gaze never strays too far away though, and she finds herself questioning if protecting her heart from not getting broken is worth it after all.

  
**. . . .**

 

The boys had been promptly excused and told to play with their toys in the living room by Regina. She had not said a single word to him, and had only quietly gathered the plates on a pile, carrying it over to the sink. When he’d heard the sound of the water going, he’d been snapped into action, and he’d stood up from his chair, the legs scraping loudly against the tiled floor.

  
He makes his way to the sink and asks her politely to leave it to him, but she shakes her head, tells him it’s the least she can do after he’d made lunch, and should he want to help, he can go and tend to the tables. Not wanting to start another argument, he follows along her suggestion and walks back to the table, taking what’s left of their lunch and packing it to be stored away in the fridge.

  
He helps her with the dishes when he’s done, and apart from a short side glance, she doesn’t acknowledge his presence. It’s unnerving. He knows words have been exchanged the night before. Words....words that should have been exchanged, if you ask him, but maybe a bit differently—to that he’s acquiescing at least.

  
He understands her fears, and even if he doesn’t or didn’t, he accepts them. He knows it’s not easy for her, it’s not that much of a walk in the park for him either, but he’s willing to take that plunge, willing to take risks for her because he knows she’s worth it. The family they have always dreamt of is within their reach, if they just stop being afraid. He just needs her to see that.

  
He really wishes he can tell himself that he knows exactly how to do that, but with the state of things, with Regina wanting to hide from the truth and the reality that they are meant to be, and not to speak of the years and years that they have been apart...he knows he’s not entirely equipped to convince Regina.

  
He turns to look at her as she takes a glass and washes it. She could use the dishwasher, they both know that, but years of knowing her that cleaning is a chore that soothes her, no matter how unlikely, and it makes him a bit relieved that it’s not changed even now. At least, there is a part of her that he still knows.

  
“There’s ice cream in the fridge, think I can feed the boys with it and not regret it?” he asks her, keeping his voice light, not really wanting to trigger her into running away again, because obviously, they still need to talk.

  
She smiles despite herself, and nods, keeping her eyes trained on the dishes she’s washing, and he stands by the threshold, watching her and the way her back is tensed like she can’t relax. He tries, by god, he tries very hard, but seeing her there, her being there, evoking feelings in him that he has been trying to keep suppressed for the past eleven years, still trying to keep suppressed even now...

  
It’s not his smartest move, he’ll realize when he looks back.

  
But right now...right now, his feet carry him to where she is standing, eyes trained on the glass, and her back to him, and moves closer, closer till there’s very little space between them, and wraps his arms around him like he’s been wanting to do for so long.

  
He watches the glass slip from her fingers, the gasp that escapes her mouth enough to clue him in on her absolute surprise. He catches the glass before it can fall and crash on the sink. Her back becomes even more unbearably stiff, and he rubs his thumb against her wrist, willing her to relax.

  
“Robin,” she murmurs, and he knows it, knows what he’s about to say, knows that she’s about to give him hell and tell him it’s not a good idea, all the things he already knows and doesn’t really want to hear anymore.

  
“I know,” he murmurs right back, “I know Regina.” His forehead falls against her shoulder, and his lips press a soft kiss against the material of her jumper. “But..just a moment, Regina, please...just one moment.”

  
She doesn’t say anything, but the way she relaxes, the way she melts into his arms, and lets him hold her is enough. For a moment they just stand there, him holding on to her, his nose buried to the crook of her neck, willing the world to disappear. If only it could be her and him and their boys...then life would be a lot better.

  
“I think one scoop each would be fine,” she whispers, and it’s not loud, barely even audible, but enough to break the peace around them.

  
As it is, the universe conspires against his happiness, and just like every moment, it’s stored away in memories until it slowly fades away.

  
**. . . .**

Against her better judgment, Regina finds herself staying in Robin’s house and spending more time with him and his sons. Henry had wanted to spend time thinking of what he’d wanted his room to look like in his father’s house, and had asked his father to help him with themes and the like, while Roland had been very hard to refuse when he’d asked her to read to him and play with him. Before Regina had even noticed, it’s already half past five, and because she doesn’t want to spend another awkward time gathered round the dining table like they’re some sort of family that she knows they won’t be, she herds her son out of Robin’s house with the promise that she will let him visit his father on any other day so they can start on bringing his bedroom to life.

  
Roland had been disappointed, and she loathes to upset the child when she knows why he is clinging to her like he is, but she also doesn’t want the adorable kid to harbour false hopes and what this is, because even she doesn’t know what it is.

  
Besides, she’d promised her parents she’s coming along for the dinner at the house, even if she’s surprised that her mother had allowed Henry to be brought along. Of course, Regina knows there is no cat in hell’s chance that she’s going if Cora had put her foot down and banned her son. As it is, and if not for Henry Sr.’s pleading, Regina won’t have allowed it. Regina doesn’t quite trust Cora.

  
Regina drives them home, then, and instructs her son to freshen up and wear something nice for dinner. Henry looks at her oddly, but does not say anything in the contrary and only moves to do as she asks him.

  
“Shoes, Henry,” she yells after him as she hears his footsteps thundering up the stairs. She toes her shoes off and picks them up just as she hears her son come back down and retrieve his shoes at the foot of the stairs.

  
She smiles at him when they meet at the landing, and she slings an arm around him as they climb up together. She is nervous and knows that Henry is picking up on it, so she strives to keep her anxieties at bay and focuses on what could possibly be a miracle: an actual peaceful dinner.

  
And maybe, pigs will fly.

  
**. . . .**

 

Regina Mills has always been trouble for him.  
Mostly because he’s always been so utterly, foolishly besotted in her that it’s hard to function, and it seems that he’s passed it on to his sons. Well, at least he knows both Henry and Roland adore her. It is clear in the way both boys act around her. Sometimes, he’d catch both boys looking after her retreating form when she walks out of the room to do one thing or the other, looking like they’re half scared she is about to leave them permanently.

  
It’s endearing if it isn’t so alarming. He knows they, meaning he and Regina, would have to put their weight in to make sure the boys start feeling secured around them. He worries more about Roland, knowing Regina doesn’t really have any reason to make sure of his son’s well-being, unlike with Henry, but Robin can see how attached Regina is becoming with Roland and Regina has always had such huge capacity for love. Despite not being sure what Regina’s role would be in Roland’s life (he knows what he wants her to be, but he also knows it’s still up to her), he is assured that Regina would have a role in it...or at least he hopes so anyway. After all, it is inevitable, granted that Regina is the mother of his eldest son.

  
He hasn’t given up on Regina and the love he knows is still there. He’d made a vow once, to love her forever and beyond, and he will honour that, has always honoured that. He’s not about to let go now. He knows they will eventually find their way back together.

  
**. . . .**

 

Dinner is tensed, like always. Regina isn’t sure why she’s even bothered. Henry is obviously picking up on the hostile vibes around him and has been really, really, quiet, despite his grandfather coaxing him into being his usual jolly self.

  
Regina frowns as she looks at her mother, sitting at the head of the table, looking like she would rather that neither Regina nor Henry are there. For the past hour, they might as well have not been, as Cora has pretended so.

  
She’s talked to neither Regina nor Henry, and has been making Henry Sr. talk to them, which is ridiculous and childish, and something Regina doesn’t wish to put her son through. What had been the point of asking them to dinner if Cora’s just going to treat them like dirt of her shoe?

  
Regina wonders when her mother had been so bitter.

  
When had Cora turn out to be this way?

  
Sure she hadn’t always been the perfect mother, and from Regina’s formative years to present, she’d learned more to ask for the advice of Mama Odie than her own mother, but Cora hasn’t always been so...cold, so heartless. She’d been a mother before, she’d been hard to talk to, but at least Regina has always been able to talk to her. Cora had been busy, too, running the bank, but she’d found the time to be a mom to Regina and her sister, but lately, Cora seems like she’s even forgotten how to be herself.

  
Regina can’t help but blame herself. It’s her fault, after all, when she’d gone and gotten herself pregnant. Cora had plans for her, plans that despite the roundabout way that she’d wanted Regina to go through, had not included Regina getting pregnant right after high school.

  
And so, yes, maybe that’s her fault, but Regina doesn’t regret it. In fact, she regrets it even less and resents her mother even more for stealing away 10 years of the boy’s life away from her.

  
Henry looks at her, and it’s a look of utter distress and vulnerability that she hates herself further for foisting this on her son. She’d promised never to let him go through it again, to even let those kind of emotions paint his youthful face, but she’d failed him.

  
She smiles at him, or at least tries to, and gives him a subtle nod. She’ll get herself and her son out of her, and maybe suggest to have lunch or brunch with her father some other day. Some other day, when mother isn’t there to dampen everything with her sour mood.

  
She is thinking of excuses she can use to get out of here with her son in tow, when Mrs. Potts and her companion come in and gather the plates they’ve used. Mrs. Potts sends her a sympathetic smile discreetly as mother leans back and looks at the servants cleaning up their dinner. When Mrs. Potts and the other girl cleans everything out and walks away, after mother makes sure everything is to her satisfaction, Mother stands up and walks out of the room without another word, fully expecting her dinner companions to follow her.

  
Regina throws her father a helpless look, watches as he shakes his head, defeated. Her heart sinks to her stomach, and sinks further when she turns her gaze at her son who’s looking as miserable as she feels inside. She’d had decades of hiding her misery, but her son barely has had 20 minutes.

  
She feels her father’s hand on her back and she looks up at him with a sad look, but acquiesces. She turns to her son and gestures for him to go with them, fully knowing that she should just leave but not knowing how to end this miserable night without making her mother’s ire grow even more. Her mother might not deserve it, but Regina doesn’t want her to be any more upset than she already is.

  
In the end, she’ll be the one to suffer, and it might be a tad bit selfish of her, but she just needs them to make it through this night, and then she will never subject her son through this again.

  
Maybe next time Mother asks them to come over for dinner, she’ll ask Robin to take Henry for the night.

  
It would disappoint Daddy a tiny bit, but it’s a small price to pay for the well-being of her son, isn’t it? Besides, she’d be there to keep Daddy company. That should be enough.

  
“You really ought to date again, Regina. You don’t want to end up alone in her 30s, with a son to boot,” Mother says, breaking through her haze (she hadn’t even realized that she’s now seated). Regina looks up and spies her father now playing a game of chess with her son, and mother is seating across her, a perpetually annoyed look etched on her face. “You don’t want your son to end up not having a father, he’s a growing boy.”

  
Regina fights the scoff that she really wants to let out. Of course, now Mother is concerned about the grandson she hadn’t wanted in the first place, going as far as lying to Regina about him being dead just to get rid of him. All at once, Regina is reminded why she had wanted mother out of her life for good. But there is her son to think about, and despite very rough beginnings, she does want him to have a sort of relationship with them. Her father, mostly, but of course, Mother and Daddy are a package.

  
“My son has a father,” Regina tells her mother instead, levelling Cora with a stare that leaves her no room for misinterpretation. “And he has a good one.”

  
Cora raises an eyebrow, scorn pulling her lips down into a frown. “Ah, that Locksley boy?” she says, and Regina is sure that it’s the beginning of a tirade that she doesn’t want to hear—not just because of Henry, but also because Robin is a good man, despite everything they’ve disagreed on lately, Robin had been nothing but the model dad of the year for Henry since he’d found out that Henry is his. Mother had no right to demean him in that area, amongst the many other things she’s already lambasting Robin’s name on.

  
“Don’t even start,” Regina warns, her voice dropping so that Henry wouldn’t hear. She throws her mother a look that dares her to even disagree. Regina clenches her fists and tries to calm herself down, tries not to stand up and walk out of here, dragging her son behind her. “Whatever you say about me, or about my past relationship with Robin, I will take like water on my back, but Robin has been a good father to our son, Henry loves him, and I will not stand for you saying anything mean about him. Especially not when our son is within earshot.”

  
Cora opens her mouth briefly as though she has something to say, but the look in Regina’s eyes must have stopped her someway because she only scowls and looks away, huffing.

  
“I heard the good Sheriff has been asking after you,” she says instead, a gifted change of the subject, but still a slight on Regina’s lack of beau. Not that it should be any of mother’s business.

  
Robin is, was, right. Mother had all that she had to say eleven years ago.

  
Regina curses Mary Margaret in her mind, knowing it could only be her. The sheriff has not been asking anyone else after Regina.

  
“I don’t know,” Regina answers with an indifferent shrug. “He certainly hasn’t been asking me.” She tilts her chin up and presses her lips together, before turning her body slightly towards the two Henry’s playing, letting her mother know without words that this conversation is over.

  
Mother doesn’t say anything further, either, but Regina knows she’s boiling inside.

  
Let her, she thinks to herself almost amusedly.

  
She is done giving a fuck.

  
**. .**

 

“Fuck,” Regina curses loudly when she accidentally spills coffee on her desk. It has been such a long Monday, and getting longer still, and she had been extremely exhausted from the weekend, and had kept herself up at night worrying about Henry, and then Robin, and then fuming about her mother’s betrayal, and then worrying about Henry and Robin again. She hadn’t had much sleep and had to rush out this morning because when she did sleep, she’d fallen deep and had woken up late. Only to arrive into an absolute chaos in her office because of some misfiled documents.

  
It is to be her first coffee of the day, and of course she fucking spills it.

  
She hears someone rapping at the door, and she rolls her eyes and huffs, before saying “It’s open,” thinking it to be her secretary. Mary Margaret’s head pokes in, looking apprehensive, and Regina tries a smile (though she feels it looks to be more of a grimace), and beckons her inside.

  
“Belle said you’ve had a rough morning,” Mary Margaret says inquiringly as she steps inside and makes her way to the desk where Regina is still profusely wiping off the coffee she’s spilled.

  
“More like a rough weekend,” Regina quips, her shoulder lifting and falling as she releases a long, steadying deep breath. “Speaking of which, have you been chatting with my mother?”

  
Mary Margaret looks down and avoids her eyes, and it is an answer in itself, so Regina just raises an eyebrow and clears her throat pointedly when Mary Margaret fails to answer after a stretched silence.

  
“Well, not chatting,” Mary Margaret finally says, and Regina’s eyebrow rises higher. “Not really, no, but she’s been asking after you, and well not so subtly about Robin, and I know you don’t want her to go there...because of Henry and all, and so I told her that other than the Sheriff asking after you, I haven’t heard anything else. You know Cora is some sort of piped piper, and I couldn’t lie, so I told her some half truth.”

Mary Margaret is one of a very select few who knows about Henry and what Cora has done (Mama Odie knows too, and she assumes so does Mrs. Potts and Gepetto—their gardener, but that’s it, she’d wanted to keep it as private as she can for Henry’ sake), and Regina has been eternally grateful that for once Mary Margaret has enough wits about her to not spill any beans.

  
Regina finally manages, then, to wipe the coffee she’s spilled and she gathers all the used up napkin and throws it in the wastebasket. She cocks her head to her right and gestures to the flower arrangement she’d found when she’d walked in.

  
“Belle said that the Sheriff sent that,” Regina confesses to the younger brunette, making her gasp. “I got to wonder how my mother found the time to egg the good sheriff on to doing this.” She pauses for a second and then shakes her head. “Not that my mother ever lets anything stop her. She’d been able to convince your brother to ask me out, despite...” She trails off as she becomes aware of what is coming out of her mouth. She looks to Mary Margaret, a but horrified, but the other woman is just sat there looking stricken.

  
“Half brother,” the other woman murmurs, and Regina hums but doesn’t answer, ending that conversation in that. There is a bit of an awkward silence, before Mary Margaret speaks up again. “Is there anything going on between you and Robin?”

  
It is a leap from where they had started the conversation but it’s not all that hard of a leap to make, considering. Regina’s not entirely sure how to address that question, not knowing herself what the answer is. Of course there is something going on between her and Robin, she hasn’t buried her head too far in the sand to not know that, but what exactly it is, she isn’t sure.

  
All she knows is that there will always be something between her and Robin.

  
Regina sighs and closes her eyes, opening them not a beat later and then shrugging her shoulder and feeling the tension ease with the movement. God, she’s been so caught up with all the stress lately, she feels like there is a ball of anxiety sitting heavily at the pit of her stomach.

  
“I don’t know,” she murmurs with a slight shake of her head. “We’re trying to be parents to Henry, trying to work it out. Henry and I spent the day with him and his son this weekend, and he said some tings that ring true...too true.”

  
Mary Margaret pats her hand sympathetically. “What’s really stopping you Regina?” she asks insightfully, making Regina take a sharp intake of breath.

  
She never really delved deep for a reason on her reluctance. She’d always chalked it up to the changes she was scared of happening, and her mother, and time, and that still is true, but with the rawness of what just happened with Robin...Regina feels the need to take a step back and just wonder.

  
“I...I don’t think...” she stops short, uncertain what to say next. “I don’t get to ask for more than what I already have. Henry is my only happy ending.”

  
Mary Margaret’s face falls, and she grasps Regina’s hand in hers and sighs. “Regina, I have seen you at your best and at your worst. I have seen you through the heartache of losing Robin and losing Henry—though I hadn’t known it at the time—and you’ve always come up, always made it through, survived and have become better for it. I know it’s scary right now, to think that happiness might really be well in reach, but it is, it can be. The only person standing in the way of your happiness is you.” She smiles softly, making Regina almost believe anything and everything that she is saying. “Don’t let anything hold you back.”

  
**. . . .**

 

Robin loves his house. He loves the way the moonlight filters through the large windows and bathes the room in a soft glow. He loves the dark woods and all the carpeting, and loves the way the roaring fire in the hearth makes the big house cozy. He loves all the space, and he loves the quiet.

  
Except, that late night, the house feels too quiet—deafening in its silence and emptiness.

  
Roland has been asleep for hours, away on a sleepover with John again. Henry, too, had been invited, and Robin would be lying if he says he is surprised that Regina has allowed it. She’d decided on it so last minute, that she’d thought she isn’t going to let Henry join the slumber party. But she had, and Robin is left wondering why she’d decided so suddenly to let him.

  
Maybe she’s out on a date with the Sheriff, Robin thinks to himself, a bit too bitterly if he is honest.

  
He’s heard the rumors, has heard the Sheriff brag about Cora’s stamp of approval, no matter how subtle it’s been given. Robin knows that shrew far too well to know if the Sheriff had been lying, and fuck, he hasn’t been.

  
Whatever reason Cora could find to keep him and Regina apart she will use, and she will manipulate the whole town if she needs to, Robin is sure.

  
It shouldn’t matter, and no it does not, not really, except Regina has been tethering over the edge of denial town herself and can’t bring herself to face the fact that they are meant to be together. He hasn’t stopped loving her in all these years, and he can see it in her eyes that she hasn’t either, but she’s so steeped in her denial that she’s failing to see it.

  
There will always be something between her and him, no matter how hard she denies it.

  
Of course, he doesn’t want to force it, doesn’t want to force her. He doesn’t want her to feel obligated to do this, just because he knows they are still in love or because they have found their long lost son. He wants her to love him of her own accord, to come to terms to the fact on her own.

  
He is a patient man after all, and if he’s managed to wait for her for eleven years, he can wait a little bit more.

  
The sound of thudding against the door interrupts his thought, and he frowns, looks up at the time and wonders who it could possibly be. He isn’t expecting anyone, and can’t think of anyone who might have urgent business with him at this hour, unless it is John and one of the kids is in danger or sick.

  
He tells himself that there is no cause for alarm, it would be more sensible and feasible if John called, even as he makes a dead run to the door. He is imagining the worse, thinking of his sons, and he is still panting when he throws open the door only to find:

“Regina?” he asks in surprise and wonder as he sees her stand there in front of him looking nervous and scared and apprehensive and excited all at once. “What are you doing here?”

  
She looks up at him with her big brown eyes and he can see all the emotions running there. He is about to ask her another question but she doesn’t let him. She grabs him by the lapel and crashes her mouth into his.

  
Robin has always known that there will always be something between him and Regina. Now he’s certain of what it is.

  
They’re meant to be together, against all odds.


End file.
